An album called 'Roses' would be concerned with romantic gestures. Across the ten tracks that make up the seventh and newest Widowspeak record, intimate spaces and stages of love are captured with a nostalgic, vaseline-coated lens. Candles burn inside red glass as lovers get close in a leather booth. Celebrity headshots gaze down like angels in a restaurant. Elsewhere, carnations are pressed in a black book and dancers pull each other close. Widowspeak is a band that riffs on big emotions without being too self-serious. The sweetness, even silliness, of an extended limerent phase that becomes as all-consuming as a pulpy trade paperback. Cars and their drivers serve as a way to talk about codependency. If music can simultaneously be naturalistic and noir, saturated and lush, that is Widowspeak. They’re a band that knows how to set a scene.

These songs use intimate moments to talk about deeper heartaches: the restlessness inherent in modern existence, waiting around for something to happen. Or, feeling at odds with playing a role in your own life. 'Roses' might be the most romantic Widowspeak record, but it’s also the most deeply realist: the stage is set not with dramatic overtures but the backdrop of the minutiae and repetition of daily acts. Small observations before, during, and after work: the ritual of pouring water for customers, catching a cold on your day off. Daydreaming about winning the lottery, or maybe realizing you already won. Here, love is a way to talk about what drives us, and Widowspeak suggest it can be the whole point. The light that illuminates the dark corners of a day, a life. A reason to keep going despite the pain it can cause.

Widowspeak are one of the most prolific and hardworking bands going, bubbling just under the surface. Molly Hamilton and Robert Earl Thomas are the core of the group and its songwriters, and they have honed their sound across sixteen years and an impressively consistent catalog. One of many bands to crop up in a fertile New York City music scene, they started out shuffling gear between venues now-since shuttered and their practice space in Monster Island Basement. Widowspeak is now a married couple, working day jobs in their own off-season. Robert is a carpenter, Molly a waitress. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Laura says: Widowspeak return with another collection of gentle, country-tinged pop songs. Molly's understated vocals evoke the dreamy intimacy of Hope Sandoval, while the melodies and guitar work bring to mind artists such as Tom Petty and R.E.M. There's no grand statement or dramatic flourish, just a set of quietly beautiful songs that reveal their charm with effortless grace.

TRACK LISTING

1. The Hook
2. No Driver
3. Roses
4. If You Change
5. Wondering
6. Angel Number
7. Soft Cover
8. Heaven Is Waiting
9. Actor
10. Hourglass 

The Lemon Twigs’ two previous Captured Tracks albums, 'A Dream Is All We Know' (2024) and 'Everything Harmony' (2023), certainly indicated something of a ground zero in their then five album career. “It was the beginning of making records that we would listen to ourselves,” says Michael D’Addario, the younger Twig brother, now aged 26. By the time of 'A Dream Is All We Know' and the future Michael classic 'My Golden Years', The Lemon Twigs’ new era had truly begun. And now comes the third Lemon Twigs album for Captured Tracks, 'Look For Your Mind!', which underneath its poppy exterior contains an undercurrent of paranoia and suspicion. Opening with title track 'Look For Your Mind', a jangly Michael number, the listener is introduced to the guitar-driven harmony sound that is the centering theme of the album. Much of what was achieved on 'A Dream Is All We Know is here', just more laser focused. It’s classic Twigs, indebted to the golden age of guitar pop, but in no way slavish.

New to this album is the inclusion of live Twigs Reza Matin (drums) and Danny Ayala (bass), as well as Eva Chambers of Tchotchke, to the rhythm section. With the brothers previously having handled everything in the studio themselves, this shows a new-found sense of freedom. 'Gather Round' is one of 'Look For Your Mind!’s bigger productions. A Brian song with joyous orchestrations, it feels like a turn of the century campaign song. The writer is looking for an uncorrupted leader, but resolves that collective action is the only way forward. Musically it’s ornate and delightfully 1967, but the mood and sentiment is distinctly 2026. “Every time we try to write something that’s completely straightforward, we can’t help adding an element which comes out of left field.” explains Brian.

Brian’s 'Fire And Gold' starts off with a ringing power pop riff before turning everything inside out. It’s also the first song on the album to feature the powerhouse drummer Reza Matin, whom the brothers favorably compare to Big Star’s Jody Stephens, The Raspberries’ Jim Bonfanti, and The Move’s Bev Bevan. Closing side one on the vinyl record is Michael’s beautiful ballad, 'Mean To Me', with vocals The Beach Boys would be happy to have committed to wax 60 years ago, care of Michael, Brian and Danny. The closer of the second side, 'Your True Enemy', completely throws a spanner in the works. “We at first approached the song as a simple rock arrangement, but it didn’t fit the moodiness of the lyric,” states Brian. “So that’s when we started to get more experimental.”The Lemon Twigs sixth studio album may at first seem like a direct continuation of the previous two, but it is also a lot more, with nods to the earlier records, a new found collective spirit, and most importantly great songwriting.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: New York's Lemon Twigs have moved further into the territory of 60's and 70's rock music, this time with more of a lean into the psychedelic side of things, chanelling the Beach Boys and Beatles' most tuned-in musings. Though the duo have noticeable influences, it comes off as a tribute to and fusion of those recognisable sounds rather than a pastiche, from two increasingly talented musicians and songwriters.

TRACK LISTING

1. Look For Your Mind
2. 2 Or 3
3. Nothin’ But You
4. Gather Round
5. I Just Can’t Get Over Losing You
6. Fire And Gold
7. Mean To Me
8. Bring You Down
9. Yeah I Do
10. I Hurt You
11. You’re Still My Girl
12. Joy
13. My Heart Is In Your Hands Tonight
14. Your True Enemy 

Like in the days of Steely Dan, Harry Nilsson or Prince releasing a classic album every year (or less), ten years ago Mac DeMarco released the mini-LP 'Another One' only about a year after the meteorically successful album 'Salad Days'. An eight track release that expands the arsenal of Mac’s already impressive catalog, 'Another One' was conceived and recorded entirely by Mac at his house in Far Rockaway, Queens, and displays the maturity of Mac’s progression as a songwriter: a little bit more refined, a little bit more sophisticated than his previous albums, but nonetheless chock-full of the guts and soul of any classic Mac release.

The overall feeling of the mini-LP is lost love, or perhaps love never found, a topic that the world never tires of, and one that Mac can move through without it being a dour and somber experience. The record leaves you with the same satisfaction as an old Bogart movie: he’s still the hero, but he doesn’t quite get the girl.

Great singer/songwriters don’t need to reinvent themselves; they just need to keep going and let the songs out in the world, and with that, Mac DeMarco gave us 'Another One'.

This limited edition 10 year anniversary pressing collects both 'Another One' and newly remastered 'Another One Demos' on 2 LPs housed in a gatefold jacket and pressed on clear & blue Far Rockaway vinyl. Includes a 12 page booklet with new liners written by Mac, and previously unpublished photos from the era by Laura-Lynn Petrick.

TRACK LISTING

1. The Way You’d Love Her
2. Another One
3. No Other Heart
4. Just To Put Me Down
5. A Heart Like Hers
6. I’ve Been Waiting For Her
7. Without Me
8. My House By The Water
9. A Heart Like Hers - Demo
10. Another One - Demo #1
11. Another One - Demo #2
12. At Ron’s Bris
13. B^)
14. I’ve Been Waiting For Her - Demo
15. No Other Heart - Demo
16. Just To Put Me Down - Demo
17. Prem + Prickle
18. Reggie’s First Date
19. Rick’s New Haircut #1
20. Rick’s New Haircut #2
21. The Way You’d Love Her - Demo
22. Without Me - Demo
23. Zhe Doan #1
24. Zhe Doan #2

JayWood – the nom de plume of Jeremy Haywood-Smith – is embracing new pastures having moved his music-making from Winnipeg, Manitoba to Montreal, and his new album Leo Negro chimes with a different tone as it looks to reconnect the self and grapple with one’s identity. Marking a moment of meaningful change where controlled chaos takes the lead, it philosophises on what it truly means to be an experimentalist building a multi-faceted world where genre is infinite through sounds braver, more playful, and truthful than he’s dared deliver before. Despite its astute sampling with layers of twists and turns, Leo Negro doesn’t showboat but roars in the presence of vulnerability as it considers one’s abso-lutes as a way of navigating the identity crisis. “Always looking for attention, I admit it, I can’t help it, I’m a Leo,” he reasons between vintage hip-hop scrubs Pistachios,’ recalling a childhood need to be the centre of attention then stepping out of the spotlight as a grown-up. “Leos are confident and sure about themselves, but this record isn’t that; so really, when translated, the title inspires‘black confidence.’ It’s an uncomfortable, weird, and surreal term which bends the truth and embodies everything within.”

Experimenting in both life and music, Leo Negro and its first cut, ‘Big Tings’ (feat.California, art-pop duo Tune-Yards) couldn’t be further from 2023’s Grow On EPand the previous year’s slick LP Slingshot. Moving with flow akin to D’Angelo with Toro Y Moi textures, its twinkling intro of whirling synth and playful approach circles back to Jeremy’s adolescence when he’d reverse, slow down, and speed up his favourite songs through the media player on his computer. Encouraged by his musical squad Will Grierson, Arthur Antony, Brett Ticzon, and enlisting his stylist and thrifter friends to capture the Leo Negro aesthetic, Jay-Wood’s big ‘in’ for 2025 is collaboration, with the tight-knit crew of likeminded musical colleagues captured in session photo grins beaming from his Instagram grid.

TRACK LISTING

1. WOOZY
2. PISTACHIOS
3. BIG TINGS (feat Tune-Yards)
4. J.O.Y
5. ASSUMPTIONS
6. GRATITUDE
7. ASK 4 HELP
8. PALMA WISE
9. DSNTRLYMT TR
10. UNTITLED (Swirl)
11. SUN BABY

Juan Wauters’ ‘MVD LUV’ is more than just an album—it’s a homecoming. For the first time in his career, Wauters has recorded a full-length project in his birthplace of Montevideo, Uruguay, embracing the city’s rich musical traditions while continuing to push the boundaries of his distinctive songwriting.A love letter to both his roots and his present, ‘MVD LUV’ brings Uruguayansounds to the global stage, incorporating candombe and murga rhythms into Wauters’ signature fusion of folk, pop, and experimentation. Having spent much of his career in the United States, Wauters has long carried the dual identity of immigrant and native son. With ‘MVD LUV’, he set out to bridge those worlds, capturing the essence of Montevideo’s streets, homes, and communal spirit. The album was recorded in various locations across the city, from his own studio to sidewalks, rooftops, and the homes of featured musicians. This approach lends the project a raw authenticity, making Montevideo itself feel like an active presence in the music. Thematically, MVD LUV explores identity, nostalgia, and human connection. Tracks like “Manejando por Pando” and “Siempre Vuelven” reflect on returning home and the passage of time, while “If It’s Not Luv” and “DimeAmiga” delve into love, companionship, and personal reflection. “Ando conMiedo” captures urban anxieties, juxtaposing introspection with the vibrant rhythms of the city. Throughout, Wauters crafts a deeply personal yet universal meditation on belonging. With ‘MVD LUV’, Juan Wauters presents a vibrant, heartfelt exploration of place and identity, creating an album that feels both deeply rooted and universally resonant. This is a record that doesn’t just introduce listeners to Montevideo—it invites them to feel at home within it.

TRACK LISTING

1. Amor Montevideo
2. If It’s Not Luv
3. Manejando Por Pando
4. Acting Like I Don’t Know
5. Canción Mamá
6. Dime Amiga
7. La Lucía
8. Mutuación
9. Niño
10. Get A Habit
11. Aeropuerto
12. Lonely By Myself
13. Ando Con Miedo
14. Siempre Vuelven

On her first album of alt-pop anthems - 2022’s gorgeous, folk-infused 'When I’m Alone' - girlpuppy (neé Becca Harvey) often felt like she was working in the shadow of her collaborators. Made on the other side of a relationship where she often felt marginalized, 'Sweetness' felt like the right project for the 25-year-old Atlanta-based singer-songwriter to rethink her creative approach and work solely from her own lyrical and melodic ideas. The result of this process was a darker, more texturally expansive record than its predecessor, full of heart-rending songs about pushing back against self-blame and doubt. From its heavy-duty sonics to its naturally flowing melodies to its emotionally generous lyrics, every element of Sweetness exudes confidence, capturing Harvey relishing raw creativity and trusting her inclinations. The record takes place within that moment all artists wait for: when their “voice” becomes so clear, they realize they can just open their mouth and start speaking in it.

Freed from the nagging insecurity that she couldn’t be a songwriter without playing an instrument - she cites The National’s Matt Berninger as an inspiration - Harvey began 'Sweetness' by recording full-length acapella voice memos. To find a backdrop for the vocals, Harvey delved into her diverse, lifelong set of musical reference points, from the country and Top 40 pop she grew up on in small-town Georgia to the later favorites that expanded her idea of what songwriting could achieve: Elliott Smith, Lana Del Rey, Yo La Tengo, and more. With the help of Asheville-based producer/co-writer Alex Farrar and additional co-writers Tom Sinclair and Holden Fincher, Harvey pinpointed a sweet spot between shoegaze, dream-pop, and pop-rock anthems from the turn of the millennium.

Mixing the playful with the devastating, Harvey coasts on cathartic waves of emotion and monster hooks throughout Sweetness—a momentum which is guaranteed to push her to the front of the ranks of today’s most fearlessrising indie-pop singer-songwriters. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A bracing mix of late 90's grunge, fizzing fuzzes and feedback with dusty shoegaze saturation and thumping, punky percussion all topped with Harvey's impeccably driven, wonderfully performed vocals. Perfectly written melodic masterpieces, and an instrumental aesthetic that hits just right.

TRACK LISTING

1. Intro
2. I Just Do!
3. Champ
4. In My Eyes
5. Windows
6. Since April
7. Beaches
8. I Was Her Too
9. For You Two
10. I Think I Did 

In the age of streaming platforms and social media, stimulation is easy to come by. Real pleasure, however—the kind that feeds our soul rather than draining it—is in shockingly short supply. The second LP by THUS LOVE is full of that kind of nourishing euphoria. It swoons, shakes, and swaggers with a combination of grit and sensuality that’s been hard to locate in music lately. It’s called, fittingly, 'All Pleasure'.

The album came out of a period of dizzying growth and transformation for the group. When they began work on it, vocalist/guitarist Echo Mars and drummer Lu Racine were still reeling from the runaway success of their 2022 debut Memorial—a set of lush, elegant post-punk that brought praise from The FADER, the NME, and the Guardian—along with processing the departure of the founding bassist.

With 'All Pleasure', the band re-formed with new bassist Ally Juleen and guitarist/keyboardist Shane Blank. The group convened in a barn in the woods that Mars had transformed into a recording studio, and kept one rule at the forefront: “If it’s not joyful, don’t do it.” What emerged from that mission is a stunningly gorgeous album, full of big, arcing melodies and a range of kinky stylistic twists that will surprise listeners who know the group just for Memorial’s chorus-drenched 80sstyle psychedelia. 'Birthday Song' gives grungy glam rock with a transcendent hook that underlines Echo’s lyrical tribute to communal joy. 'Get Stable' transmutes existential panic into sharp-angled punk pop.

The anthemic title track is something like the album’s mission statement, paying tribute to the power of joyful creation. Mixed by Matthew Hall and Rich Costey and mastered by Bob Weston, 'All Pleasure' was recorded as live as possible, capturing the sheer infectious ecstasy that comes from sharing space together and making a divine racket. Put on 'All Pleasure', tap into the energy that THUS LOVE is putting out, and you just might find an escape.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Yep, BANG into this. An album made by a bunch of supremely talented musicians about being happy, filled with tons of huge riffs and incandescent hooks. Supremely uplifting, poppy stoner punk business. Ace.

TRACK LISTING

1. On The Floor
2. Birthday Song
3. Get Stable
4. All Pleasure
5. Face To Face
6. Lost In Translation
7. Show Me Patience
8. House On A Hill
9. Bread For Blood
10. Losing A Friend

Drahla make their long-awaited return with their astounding second record angeltape, offering an intriguing world for audiences to explore while eschewing conventional melodic structures and embracing uncertainty. Their latest material gives an unfiltered insight into the challenging transitional period the band found themselves in following the release of their 2019 critically acclaimed debut, Useless Coordinates. angeltape is an altogether more introspective and abstract examination of the self, an avant garde document of the events that unfolded over the five-year gap between records. Over the last few years, the band have experienced devastating personal losses, while expanding their sound with guitarist Ewan Barr joining vocalist and guitarist Luciel Brown, bassist Rob Riggs and drummer Mike Ainsley. These recent experiences – collective and individual – culminate in a sound that is considerably darker and tonally more complex and conceptual in its essence. Delving into themes of grief and trauma whilst simultaneously celebrating moments of sentimentality and support during difficult times, angeltape shifts between being a challenging, comforting and ultimately rewarding record for both artist and audience.

The addition of Ewan Barr to Drahla’s visceral and vital arrangements signaled a significant shift in the band’s dynamic, ultimately reshaping the way they approach their angular arrangements. Crucially, it allowed Drahla to dismantle previous limitations and carve out new sonic avenues to experiment with form more than ever before. The exhilarating interplay of driving bass riffs and charged drum patterns provide a captivating contrast to Brown’s melodic spoken delivery. The enveloping atmosphere emanating from the quartet is heightened by searing saxophone accompaniments from long-standing collaborator Chris Duffin. There’s an irresistible and unwavering potency surging throughout this masterful second record, one that stays with you long after you first step into Drahla’s enticing world.

TRACK LISTING

1. Under The Glass
2. Default Parody
3. Zig-zag
4. Second Rhythm
5. Talk Ing Radiance
6. Concrete Lily
7. Lip Sync
8. A
9. Venus
10. Grief In Phantasia

A pioneer of the home recording movement, Linda Smith released several collections of delicate, bewitching solo music on cassette in the 1980s and 90s. The 2021 release of Till Another Time: 1988-1996, Captured Tracks’ compilation of Smith’s work, has helped bestow rightful critical acclaim to the ahead-of-her-time artist. Now, Captured Tracks dives deeper into Smith’s catalog with the release of two full-length companion albums, Nothing Else Matters and I So Liked Spring, available for the first time on vinyl & streaming formats.

Recorded at Smith’s home in Baltimore in 1995, Nothing Else Matters chronicles the tension between the mundanity of daily life and the creative impulse: Traffic noises on the charmingly boisterous “Little To Be Won” showcase this levity, as does the addition of playful hand claps and a laugh track to her striking cover of Young Marble Giants’ “Salad Days.” I So Liked Spring, recorded the following year, saw Smith experimenting with the unique challenge of putting another artist’s words to music. She’d come across a biography of the English poet Charlotte Mew and found her wistful poetry rife for musical interpretation. The songs on I So Liked Spring are delightfully unpredictable, full of upbeat melodies and spellbinding vocal harmonies. This is perhaps best showcased on the title track, one of Smith’s most popular songs to date, a lovelorn anthem that recalls the airy melodies of early dream pop.

Both of these albums showcase the mesmerizing charm of Smith’s songwriting, often compared to the likes of the Velvet Underground and Laurie Anderson. Home recording technology has come a long way since Smith first began recording demos on her tape machine, but her influence reverberates through the work of today’s bedroom artists. The release of these two essential albums seeks to further illuminate this connection, welcoming a new generation of listeners to the work of this trailblazing artist.

TRACK LISTING

1.Fin De Fete
2.Again
3.The Pedlar
4.Rooms
5.Afternoon Tea
6.I So Liked Spring
7.From A Window
8.Absence
9.A Quoi Bon Dire
10.In The Fields
11.May 1915
12.Not For That City 

A pioneer of the home recording movement, Linda Smith released several collections of delicate, bewitching solo music on cassette in the 1980s and 90s. The 2021 release of Till Another Time: 1988-1996, Captured Tracks’ compilation of Smith’s work, has helped bestow rightful critical acclaim to the ahead-of-her-time artist. Now, Captured Tracks dives deeper into Smith’s catalog with the release of two full-length companion albums, Nothing Else Matters and I So Liked Spring, available for the first time on vinyl & streaming formats.

Recorded at Smith’s home in Baltimore in 1995, Nothing Else Matters chronicles the tension between the mundanity of daily life and the creative impulse: Traffic noises on the charmingly boisterous “Little To Be Won” showcase this levity, as does the addition of playful hand claps and a laugh track to her striking cover of Young Marble Giants’ “Salad Days.” I So Liked Spring, recorded the following year, saw Smith experimenting with the unique challenge of putting another artist’s words to music. She’d come across a biography of the English poet Charlotte Mew and found her wistful poetry rife for musical interpretation. The songs on I So Liked Spring are delightfully unpredictable, full of upbeat melodies and spellbinding vocal harmonies. This is perhaps best showcased on the title track, one of Smith’s most popular songs to date, a lovelorn anthem that recalls the airy melodies of early dream pop.

Both of these albums showcase the mesmerizing charm of Smith’s songwriting, often compared to the likes of the Velvet Underground and Laurie Anderson. Home recording technology has come a long way since Smith first began recording demos on her tape machine, but her influence reverberates through the work of today’s bedroom artists. The release of these two essential albums seeks to further illuminate this connection, welcoming a new generation of listeners to the work of this trailblazing artist.

TRACK LISTING

1. The Answers To Your Question
2. In No Uncertain Terms
3. I'll Never See You Again
4. For Here Or To Go
5. In The Hospital
6. Bright Side
7. All Of The Blue
8. Only A Moment
9. I See Your Face
10. It Seems To Me
11. Little To Be Won
12. Nothing Else Matters
13. Salad Days

Because Hold, Jack Tatum’s fifth album under the moniker Wild Nothing, was written in the aftermath of new parenthood during the pandemic, it was probably inevitable that it would be searching and existential music. But during the recording process, the artist known for synth-pop tastefulness used it as an opportunity to reach for a new sonic maximalism and wider set of influences. With contributions from longtime collaborator Jorge Elbrecht, Tommy Davidson of Beach Fossils and Hatchie’s Harriette Pilbeam, first single “Headlights On” features an acid house-worthy bass groove and breakbeat that prove Tatum is playing for the rafters.

Tatum produced the rest of the record on his own, partially out of necessity, due to the challenges of the pandemic. The songs were eventually brought to Adrian Olsen at Montrose Recording in Richmond to begin recording drums and filling in the gaps. While largely a product of isolation, Hold also reflects the things Tatum has learned from collaborators, both on previous records and during his acclaimed work with Japanese Breakfast and Molly Burch. The rest of the record was mixed by Geoff Swan, who listeners might know for his work with Caroline Polachek and Charli XCX. Swan put Tatum’s vocals high in the mix, and throughout the album, he embraces playful vocal processing like never before.

Tatum moved from Los Angeles back to his home state of Virginia about five years ago in search of a scaled-back lifestyle. The relatively suburban environment—and the occasional regret it inspired—proved to be great artistic fodder. It’s the para- dox of modern America—the suburbs are supposed to be stultifying to art, but they are so full of human desperation perfect for dramatizing. On “Suburban Solutions”, he presents an anti-jingle with an acidly bright synthesizer melody, imploring you to sign on the dotted line, put your feet up, and embrace sweet oblivion.

Adding to the song’s menacing cheeriness is a chorus-sung bridge, made with as- sistance from Molly Burch and Tatum’s wife, Dana, It was loosely inspired by the classic Martika song “Toy Soldiers” and the long-ago pop craze for children’s choirs, and he embraces the trend’s less-than-stellar reputation. By design, Hold dwells in uncertainty and fear, but in a package that encourages meditation and a bit of fun. “In the face of the pandemic, I think being a parent really forced my hand,” Tatum said. “I felt that I had no other choice but to have a positive outlook on the world. Because if I were to give in at any moment and say, “Oh, everything is horrible,” then I’ll feel as if I’ve lost and I’ve given up on my son being able to thrive in this world.”

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Another beautiful selection of hazy melodies and airy jangle from the ever-talented Jack Tatum, just this time we veer into silken synthpop territory. It's just as perfectly formed and shows what a breadth of styles Tatum has as his disposal.

TRACK LISTING

1. Headlights On
2. Basement El Dorado
3. The Bodybuilder
4. Suburban Solutions
5. Presidio
6. Dial Tone
7. Histrion
8. Prima
9. Alex
10. Little Chaos

For Molly Burch, the age 13 was a seminal moment in life that has shaped the path that she is on now. Burch's fourth album, Daydreamer, explores the feelings and insecurities of this critical stage. Burch has recently relocated to her hometown of Los Angeles, but while she was still residing in Austin, she visited home and did that thing our parents love to have us do: rummage through old boxes to see what shit we can throw away. Upon finding her old diaries from age 13 and younger, Burch was brought to tears. Realizing how cruel she was to herself then, and how she still harbors many of those same self-critiques. It was this visit that forced her to take responsibility for where she was currently at in life, anxiety and body issues and all, and to try to let go of old habits.

The thematic territory mined on Daydreamer makes it her most personal album yet, and though yes, she says that about all of her albums, this one in particular is a conversation between Burch's state of being when she was younger and how she feels currently as an adult. Daydreamer boasts a sharper, much cleaner production approach and a bit more pop than Burch's previous records, thanks to producer Jack Tatum (Wild Nothing). The result is music that feels stirring and sweeping, pulling in sounds and influences of the past, while also propelling Burch into a further development of herself as an artist.

On the surface, lead single "Physical" is a dark and sultry '80s mid-tempo jam with an intro that could very well be on the soundtrack to a John Carpenter horror film. It's also about Burch's public struggles with PMS. The album also returns to themes that have become somewhat of a signature for Burch, such as unrequited love on "Unconditional." And then there's "Tattoo," one of the more emotional songs on the album, where Burch writes an ode to her best friend in high school who took her own life in 2009. It's the longest Burch has ever taken to write a song, an ethereal ballad featuring sweeping harp and backup vocals from Luna Li (Hannah Kim).

Though the album spends time with mournful, anxious reflections, the songs on Daydreamer never feel bogged down in bleakness or morbidity. Burch's ability to take the darkest moments of her life and translate them to a universal language lays the ground for her most masterful pop writing to-date. Daydreamer is dedicated not only to her thirteen year-old self, but the thirteen year-old selves of listeners that still lingers within them. As children, we escape the world and our scariest thoughts through daydreaming. When Burch was a kid, she would daydream about how life would look when she was older, when she'd presumably have all her shit together. Now, as an adult, she finds herself daydreaming about what's next in life, what she'll create in the future, and the person she wants to be.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Molly Burch has always been a big hit in the shop, with her 2021 LP 'Romantic Images' proving a bit hit with customers too, so it's exciting to get her latest for Captured Tracks, the captivating 'Daydreamer'. With heartfelt lyrical emotion bombs like 'Tattoo' interspersed with less emotionally wrought, but equally beautiful 50's adjacent lounge-pop swooners. It's a beautifully written, deeply emotional journey.

TRACK LISTING

1. Made Of Glass
2. Physical
3. Baby Watch My Tears Dry
4. 2003
5. Tattoo
6. Unconditional
7. Heartburn
8. Champion
9. Beauty Rest
10. Bed

Since moving to Nashville to start their music career in 2012, Becca Mancari has been lauded for their dextrous songwriting and prodigious guitar playing. Their sophomore album The Greatest Part, released in 2020, was an indie rock opus that garnered acclaim from The New York Times, NPR, and more. After its release, however, Mancari was despairing. An illness in their family, coupled with a realization that their alcohol dependency had become untenable, led Mancari to begin the hard work of taking ownership of their existence by mending broken relationships and investing in their mental health. “I didn’t realize it then, but looking back, I was a passenger in my own life,” Mancari says.

The transformative period of self-reckoning was the catalyst that ultimately steered Mancari to write and produce their triumphant new album, Left Hand. After a disheartening studio session with an outside producer, Becca became convinced that they were capable of rendering their vision independently. Close friend and musical ally Juan Solorzano, who has played on all of Mancari’s albums since the debut of Good Woman in 2017, joined them in the studio to co-produce the majority of the record. In addition, Daniel Tashian (Kacey Musgraves, Demi Lovato) co-wrote and co-produced the song “Don’t Close Your Eyes,” encouraging Mancari to track every instrument on the initial demos.

As much as self-producing this album was an act of resilience and growth in one’s own craft, Mancari brought trusted friends like Brittany Howard, who they play with in Bermuda Triangle, Julien Baker and Zac Farro into the process. Insecurities that had dogged Mancari since childhood couldn’t weather the force of energy in that studio, where they executed decisions with newfound certainty. The title track, “Left Hand,” is named for the Mancari family crest. After a lifetime spent feeling like they didn’t belong, Mancari unlocked a perfect metaphor in the crest: “In many cultures children born with a dominant left hand were taught not to use that hand, and were told that using the right hand was ‘normal’ and ‘correct.’

Similarly, queer children are often times told that it’s not ‘normal’ for them to love who they love and that they need to ‘change.’” On Left Hand, Mancari offers the listener a collection of songs that should be played in moments when we are in need of reassurance and encouragement. No song exemplifies this better than the ebullient track “Over and Over,” which is a reminder to friends that happiness doesn’t need to be fleeting. “I wanted to write a queer pop song that has meat on its bones,” they say. Inspired by one of many reckless and joyful hangs with dear friends in Nashville, the enlivening pop song makes a promise to them, and to the greater community Mancari embraces on this album.

“There is something to the feeling/ Head hanging out of the window/ Being ok that we don’t know,” sung on the chorus over a beat replete with congas and shakers. What follows is a promise to anyone who ever feels like the greatest moments of their life are disappearing in the rearview: “We can have it like we used to, over and over and over and over again.”

TRACK LISTING

1. Don’t Even Worry
2. Homesick Honeybee
3. Over And Over
4. Don’t Close Your Eyes
5. Mexican Queen
6. Left Hand
7. It’s Too Late
8. Eternity
9. I Had A Dream
10. I Needed You
11. You Don’t Scare Me
12. To Love The Earth

From teddy grahams to pussy hats, California forest fires to cash cabs, the stuff of American nostalgia and horror adorns a personal reckoning on Christina Schneider’s triumphant third album as Locate S,1. With a name culled from a Daschel Hammitt noir novel, Wicked Jaw pulls from wildly disparate references and textures to survey the history of American pop music. Like Pat Benatar soundtracking an Adam Curtis documentary, the album trades in dramatic juxtapositions across its kaleidoscopic ten tracks. Only Schneider could pull off singing a line like “season finale 2020 death machine” as a soothing lullaby, but jarring contrasts echo the tumultuous personal journey woven throughout. “I was in hell ... and loving it,” Schneider said of her childhood, describing a murky cocktail of sentimentality and despair. “It’s like when you escape the matrix and then you remember your wonderful time in the matrix.” The Athens, Georgia based songwriter, producer, and virtuosic pop connoisseur authored the album over two years while beginning treatment for childhood sexual abuse by a relative. “I was using these songs as an expression valve for all of these different parts (of myself) that I was trying to integrate,” she explained. The result is a surprisingly tender and often jubilant set of conversations with the ghosts of painful memories, Schneider transforming her metaphysical scars into gleaming armor as she redefines herself on her own terms.

Following 2020’s Personalia, an album Schneider created in collaboration with producer and romantic partner Kevin Barnes (Of Montreal) – where reviews often displaced credit for Schneider’s intricate electropop to Barnes – Wicked Jaw finds Schneider decidedly and unequivocally at the helm, as the album’s sole producer. It's a stylistic departure from Personalia in many ways, beyond personnel. Spanning decades and genres from doowop to cold wave, disco to soft rock, Wicked Jaw has the vitality of full band tracking at its core. Recorded to a 24 track tape machine during a weeklong session in the summer of 2022, it features deft and magnificently wackadoo performances from players including Ross Brand (guitar, percussion), Jojo Glidewell (piano, synth, percussion), Zack Milster (bass, percussion, pedal steel), and Clayton Rychlik (drums, percussion, sax) among others.

Wicked Jaw both is and isn’t a pandemic album. The dystopic terror of COVID-19 is an omnipresent touchpoint in the songs, which Schneider began writing in the summer of 2020, but the virus functions as a gateway for interpersonal analysis and reflection. What does it mean to be an American in the 21st century? What does it mean to be a woman? What does it mean to be a survivor? Schneider digs tunnels into collective memory on songs like “Go Back to Disnee,” a devastating bossa nova track that could soundtrack an episode of White Lotus. “Under the blankets, into the plastic dreams / Into the comfort of parental regimes,” Schneider purrs with a delivery so gentle that you might not detect the venom seeping through. On this tune and others, Schneider’s exceptional songcraft is most evident through her ability to excavate the toxins lingering beneath the surface in a way where they begin to shine and radiate a strange beauty.

“Beauty throws darkness and pain into relief so you can see it more clearly,” Schneider said of this songwriting tendency. While her lyrics do a sort of time traveling alchemy on past wounds, the sonic palette of the record is the real time machine. The running joke in the studio was that Wicked Jaw should be called “Radio Free Christina,” since it felt like turning the radio dial from song to song. How else would we get an album that boasts both Dido and Thin Lizzy as musical references? But the breadth of its melodic toolkit is held together by the singularity of Schneider’s compositional voice. Although Wicked Jaw is among her most accessible releases yet, chock full of infectious hooks, these songs still feature what her bandmates call trademark “Christina-isms” – the odd metered phrases and unusual time signatures that keep the listener on their toes and the songs firmly rooted in a space of experimental sophistipop.

Lead single “You Were Right About One Thing” is a case in point. Composed with the aim of harkening classic Christine McVie hits, the easiness of this song for the listener belies an innovative underlying architecture, where complex rhythms and wild chordal leaps are somehow smooth as silk. Meanwhile, Schneider applies the same tender veneer to the song’s challenging lyrical content. “Wrote all my worst fears down when i conjured you,” she sings to a past lover who treated her badly. These memories aren’t recounted with resentment or anger, but with compassion for the ways that intergenerational trauma bears out on relationships, shaping the patterns we struggle not to repeat. “In the end, it's like, ‘can I really hate you for hurting me when I chose you to hurt me?” Schneider said, explaining that the song came from a place of “trying to reconcile forgiveness for yourself and for the other person, so you can both grow.”

Wicked Jaw offers a similar therapeutic release upon repeat listens as it did for Schneider when she wrote it. It’s a portrait of commanding and loving resilience in the face of victimization and apocalyptic doom. The potency of these songs resides not in their grasping toward the heavens, seeking escape or transcendence, but rather from digging in the dirt, sitting with it, and really seeing the worms and rot and entropy in vivid technicolor. “This is about me, but I hope other people relate to it,” Scheider said. “I have all these emotional problems that make me react like a fucking monster, but that is also forged by my experience and there’s something there that I can be proud of, that’s part of my survival. I can’t just cut the head off – I have to integrate it into myself.” 

TRACK LISTING

1. You Were Right About One Thing
2. Go Back To Disnee
3. Pieta
4. Heart Attack
5. The Hard Way
6. Danielle
7. Have You Got It Yet?
8. Blue Meaniez
9. Daffodil
10. Wicked Jaw 

There’s freedom to be found in consistency. Until recently, Juan Wauters may not have agreed with this statement. As a touring musician and multinational citizen, transience had always come naturally to him. Circumstance, however, recently prompted him to reconsider the benefits of staying in one place. His most introspective work to date, Wauters’ sixth solo album Wandering Rebel finds the artist taking stock of how he’s changed, how the world sees him, and what he wants out of life.

Written mostly during an extended break from touring, the songs on Wandering Rebel are candid reflections on subjects like career (“Wandering Rebel”),romantic commitment (“Amor Amor”), mental health (“Nube Negra”) and the personal toll of touring (“Let Loose”). On “Modus Operandi,” he voices his frustration with New York’s fair-weather residents, who fled the city at theonset of the COVID-19 lockdown. Vocal contributions from fellow New Yorker Greta Kline (Frankie Cosmos) add to the chorus of playful disapproval. On the singalong-worthy “Millionaire,” he turns his eye to the west coast: “It’s hard to get around Los Angeles / If you don’t have a car / I’m staying in a privileged part of town / It’s suspicious for me to be walking.”

The clarity with which Wauters approaches these subjects lyrically is reflected in the music as well. His trademark eclecticism is still present (fans of Real Life Situations’ spirited hip-hop should look to track 6, “Bolero”), but it’s more refined this time, anchored in his signature Latin-influenced indie folk. Wandering Rebel is peppered with delicate additions that add depth throughout: rain sounds and hand drums on “Nube Negra,” a strings section on “Modus Operandi,” a gentle vibraphone on “Amor, Amor.” Some of these are classic Wauters touches, but others are owed to outside influences, like production from Brooklyn-based Carlos Hernandez (Ava Luna, Carlos Truly) and Brazilian indie artist Sessa, as well as vocal contributions from Kline, Luz Elena Mendoza (Y La Bamba), Zoe Gotusso, and Super Willy K.

Throughout Wandering Rebel, Wauters attempts to reconcile the stability he’s come to enjoy with the nomadic restlessness that’s characterized his life thus far. In the end, though, it’s the interplay of both of these elements that makes the album so strong.

TRACK LISTING

1. Eloping
2. Milanesa Al Pan
3. Nube Negra
4. Amor, Amor
5. Modus Operandi
6. Bolero
7. Mensaje Codificado
8. Millionaire
9. Wandering Rebel
10. Carriage
11. Let Loose
12. En Un Barrio De Montevideo

On Everything Harmony, the fourth full-length studio release from New York’s The Lemon Twigs, the prodigiously talented brothers Brian and Michael D’Addario offer 13 original servings of beauty that showcase an emotional depth and musical sophistication far beyond their years as a band, let alone as young men.

Everything Harmony successfully blends the brothers’ distinct personalities while giving voice to their eclectic influences. Opening the album with the unassuming acoustic folk of plaintive “When Winter Comes Around,” which echoes the sophisticated grandeur of classic Simon & Garfunkel recordings, they immediately switch things up to the sunny classic pop motif of “In My Head.” “Corner of My Eye” channels an Art Garfunkel-like vocal melody over a moody, vibraphone-tinged backing track suggesting the chamber pop of Brian Wilson.

While they had no grand concept for Everything Harmony, both the D’Addarios felt a “palpable mood of defeat” prevailed while writing and recording it. “New To Me” was inspired by their shared experience with loved ones suffering from Alzheimer’s, “What You Were Doing” is dressed in the tortured jangle of vintage Big Star, while “Born To Be Lonely,” written after watching John Cassavetes’ Opening Night, deals with what Brian calls “the fragility that often comes with age.”

Everything Harmony is a unified song cycle born of shared blood and common purpose. With two musical heads being better than one, there’s no shortage of ideas to draw on. Their only impediments are time and the challenge of keeping up with their own prolific musical inspiration. “We share an intuition and tend to be influenced by one another,” says Brian, “so the lyrical ideas on this record tend to complement each other. Writing has never been the issue for us. It’s completing, editing and compiling that takes the time. We’re trapped in a web of songs!”

TRACK LISTING

1. When Winter Comes Around
2. In My Head
3. Corner Of My Eye
4. Any Time Of Day
5. What You Were Doing
6. I Don’t Belong To Me
7. Every Day Is The Worst Day Of My Life
8. What Happens To A Heart
9. Still It’s Not Enough
10. Born To Be Lonely
11. Ghost Run Free
12. Everything Harmony
13. New To Me

Kate Fagan took the Chicago punk scene by storm in the early 80’s with her self-released single “I Don’t Wanna Be Too Cool,” which became the best-selling single ever by a local artist at the legendary Wax Trax! Records. Today, Captured Tracks is thrilled to present an expanded, re-mastered edition of I Don’t Wanna Be Too Cool as a full-length vinyl album. Fagan wrote “I Don’t Wanna Be Too Cool” after moving to Chicago from New York in the late 70’s. The track is a critique of the emergent “hipster” attitude of the disco crowd and the posturing she was witnessing among her peers in New York. With its surf-inspired drum machine, irresistible melody, and defiant lyrics, “Too Cool” was immediately embraced by club DJs, radio stations, and independent record stores. Its b-side, “Waiting For The Crisis,” also gained notice for its raw musical style and politically charged Reagan-era lyrics, which still resonate today. In the years that followed, Fagan continued to break new ground. In 1980, she co-founded the enormously popular ska band Heavy Manners (whose dance parties are still legendary), and with them opened shows for The Clash, Grace Jones, Peter Tosh, The English Beat, and many more.

The “Too Cool” single became a sought-after rarity among record collectors for decades after its initial release, until Manufactured Recordings gave it a proper reissue in 2016. Captured Tracks’ expanded 2023 follow-up features four unreleased songs, which encapsulate the gutsy, new wave energy that pulses through the original single. The final track, the reggae-tinged “Say It”, features production from the reggae legend Peter Toshand Bob Marley’s guitarist Donald Kinsey, who flew in from Jamaica to record with Heavy Manners after witnessing their impassioned live show. While the 2016 reissue re-established Fagan’s cult-classic status for a new audience, this new expanded release solidifies her place in a tradition of trailblazing, powerhouse frontwomen.

TRACK LISTING

1 I Don’t Wanna Be Too Cool
2 Waiting For The Crisis
3 Master Of Passion
4 Come Over
5 Cover It Up
6 Take Your Chances
7 Something’s Wrong
8 Say It

The Brattleboro, Vermont trio THUS LOVE stand together, a bond cemented by their experience as outsiders looking in. For THUS LOVE, DIY is an ethos that reflects not only their musical vision but their very existence as three self-identifying trans artists. From the band’s inception, Echo Mars (she/her), Lu Racine (he/him) and Nathaniel van Osdol (they/them) have lived together under the same roof, designed and produced their own merch, and created their own recording studio from scratch. “I realize that most artists don’t live this way,” says Mars. “But for us, it was never really a choice. The art we make is so tied to who we are and the community we’re a part of, that this is the only way we can possibly do it.”

The band was just starting to regularly headline renowned local venue The Stone Church when everything came to a screeching halt. Rather than idly wait, the band decided to take their future in their own hands. Armed with nothing but YouTube videos and her innate curiosity, Mars constructed a makeshift studio in their apartment, recording during odd hours when their next-door neighbors were out and about.

Looking back now, Mars is glad the band decided to forge ahead. “I obviously would never want to go through a pandemic again, but I’m pretty confident in saying that this album would not be coming out in 2022 if we hadn’t had the forced downtime.” Their resulting debut, Memorial, is a stunningly accomplished album. The hallmarks will be unmistakable to anyone who has ever obsessed over classic LPs from indie and post-punk’s progenitors—everything from the chiming, Marr-esque guitars on opener “Repitioner” to the pugnacious rhythmic punch on lead single “In Tandem”. But even more impressive and exciting is how THUS LOVE manage to tap into this celebrated lineage to find their own unique voice and tell their own story.

Ultimately, despite the many difficulties and setbacks, the story of THUS LOVE and Memorial is one of triumph. Of seeking meaning in struggle. Of embracing community and love. Of finding joy in rebirth. 

TRACK LISTING

1. Repetitioner
2. In Tandem
3. Anathema
4. Family Man
5. Morality
6. Friend
7. Pith And Point
8. Crowd
9. Inamorato
10. Memorial 

“Home” is a tough thing to pinpoint for someone who’s constantly in motion. Scout Gillett knows this well, but since relocating from Kansas City in 2017, she’s found one in Brooklyn’s DIY scene, playing in multiple live bands and even starting her own booking company to organize local shows. Her intrepid nature results from a childhood spent running barefoot through rural Missouri and coming of age in Kansas City’s punk scene. Her debut solo album no roof no floor is a bold and spirited yet warm, intimate meditation on trust, surrender, and what makes a home.

Following the sudden overdose of a lover in 2018 and the onset of the 2020 quarantine, Scout returned to Missouri in search of reprieve. Instead, she was dismayed to find that her hometown was suffering; friends and family members were caught in the grips of drug and alcohol addiction. Overcome by grief and helplessness, she retreated inward, channeling her fears and frustrations, as she always had, into songwriting. The resulting songs were more vulnerable than any of her prior work, and it was a while before the notion of sharing them even occurred to her. Then Nick Kinsey, the album’s producer, called from his recording studio The Chicken Shack in Stanfordville, New York to tell Scout that his friends Ellen Kempner (Palehound) and David Lizmi (MS MR) had relocated upstate, and were interested in working on an album with her.

Recorded in a big wooden barn with the doors wide open, there’s a sense of spaciousness on no roof no floor befitting its title. On some songs, there are even audible cricket chirps. The arrangements, too—which feature contributions from Kempner, Lizmi, and Kevin Copeland (The Big Net)—reflect Scout’s rural roots and her indie spirit; a fusion of upbeat, guitar-driven melodies and folk/country instrumentation like pedal steel, harmonica, and tenor banjo. All of these elements are underpinned by Scout’s signature soaring, velvet vocals and openhearted lyricism. She arrives at her thesis on the haunting six-minute centerpiece “hush, stay quiet”: “you can only save yourself,” she muses over a resolute guitar. We can’t always know what to expect, even in a place we’ve been before. With a little trust, though, we can find a safe place within. No roof required.

TRACK LISTING

1. Lonesome Dove
2. Slow Dancin’
3. No Roof No Floor
4. 444 Marcy Ave
5. Signal
6. Hush, Stay Quiet
7. Mother Of Myself
8. Strangers In Silence
9. Western Eyes
10. Crooked

Canadian songwriter and producer Jeremy Haywood-Smith needed an escape from his state of mourning when he began working on Sling-shot, his most recent LP as JayWood. After the loss of his mother in 2019, and a global standstill with multiple social crises throughout 2020, Haywood-Smith yearned for some forward momentum. “The idea of looking back to go forward became a really big thing for me—hence the title, Slingshot.” Feeling disconnected from his past and ancestry after the death of a parent, Haywood-Smith made a conscious effort to better understand his identity and unique Black experience living in the predominantly white province of Manitoba. Merging fantasy scenarios, personal anecdotes, and infectious pop and dance instrumentals, Slingshot is a self-portrait of JayWood at his surface and his depths.

Musically, Slingshot reaches into sounds and styles Haywood-Smith has continued to explore throughout his catalog. “I think I made a really big deal to not pigeonhole myself,” he explains. “Whatever is inspiring me at one point will work it’s way into whatever I’m creating.”Slingshot is an amalgamation of Haywood-Smith’s many musical sensibilities, achieved with help from a crew of talented peers. Haywood-Smith wrote and performed a bulk of the track’s instrumentations, but the LP has notable appearances from Canadian contemporaries Ami Cheon (on “Just Say-in”) and Mckinley Dixon (on “Shine.”) The album’s penultimate track, “Thank You,” was co-produced with Jacob Portrait of Unknown Mortal Orchestra. The song brings JayWood’s sound full circle, offering something reminiscent of Haywood-Smith’s earliest recordings, while flaunting that “The best is yet to come.”

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Crisp modern R&B, smoothly moving between the realms of more loungey groove into bright dancefloor synth business. A sonically diverse selection, but perfectly brought together with the skill of a talented producer. Ace.

TRACK LISTING

1. Intro (End Of An Era)
2. God Is A Reptile
3. Pray, Move On
4. All Night Long
5. Just Sayin (feat. Ami Cheon)
6. Is It True (Dreams Pt. 3)
7. Kitchen Floor
8. Shine (feat. Mckinley Dixon)
9. Tulips
10. YGBO - Interlude
11. Thank You
12. Arrival (Outro)

Reptaliens are ready to be direct. After exploring surreal realms of high concept synth-pop across two acclaimed albums, the Portland, Oregon, duo gained newfound clarity in a stark, grounded approach. That may seem unexpected for such a colorful act—known for heady lyrics about conspiracy theories and transhumanism—but Cole and Bambi Browning have streamlined to the lean, propulsive essentials on their self-produced new LP, Multiverse.

Shelving the dreamy synths altogether and working without their other bandmates due to lockdown, Reptaliens reset, picking up their guitars and emphasizing the catchy attack that’s been there all along. Drawing inspiration from the spontaneous energy of the ’90s alternative canon, the pair hit a surge in momentum after a casual-turned-revelatory listen to Jane’s Addiction’s 1990 classic “Been Caught Stealing.” Without even aiming to make a Reptaliens song, they wound up penning the set’s lead single “Like a Dog,” a sun-soaked groove-bomb that’s blissfully unencumbered by sonic baggage.

Across their first two albums Reptaliens established themselves as dedicated dreamers and deep thinkers, filling their wooly, homespun synth-pop with meditations on outré science fiction and philosophy. By contrast, Multiverse brings those lyrical concerns closer to home while the music takes a jangle-prone timeless form of subtly psychedelic guitar-pop, finding occasional dark cul-de-sacs but ultimately tending toward the light and breeze.

With mixing duties divided between Mikaelin “Blue” Bluespruce (Solange, Blood Orange) and Ross Brown from Kansas City bands Shy Boys and Fullbloods, Multiverse is a crisp pop record packed with surprising flourishes, from the crunchy chorus of “I Can’t Hide” to the smoky, serpentine guitar solo on “Jump.” Striking out into refreshing new directions at every turn, Multiverse indeed feels like a symbolic crossroads. And one that only yields more possibilities with each visit.

TRACK LISTING

1. I Feel Fine
2. Like A Dog
3. In Your Backyard
4. Take It
5. Don’t Wait For Me
6. Do You Know You Are Sleeping?
7. Go Away
8. Someone I Know
9. I Can’t Hide
10. Jump

Mouth Congress – friends Paul Bellini and Scott Thompson of Kids In The Hall fame - wrote and recorded hundreds of songs in the ‘80s with - out ever putting out a proper release. Alongside various cohorts and conspirators, the band drew on their experiences as gay men to craft hilariously crude punk songs that run the gamut of strange characters and taboo subject matter. Their rag tag approach to songwriting blended various styles from noisy punk to lo-fi new wave and DIY disco, all with a very gay bent. Without trying, they were surprisingly cutting edge. Mouth Congress did dozens of live shows through the mid-80s that gained a reputation for being theatrical, combining props, sets, multiple costume changes, unusual song choices, guest stars, and Scott’s stand-up comedy.

In 1988, they recorded a 7-song demo tape. The tracks were recorded quickly, as the Kids in the Hall were about to go to New York City to develop their material. Then, caught up in the excitement of the Kids in the Hall being signed to television, Mouth Congress activities slowed to a crawl. In 2011, Paul dug out an old VHS tape of one of the live shows. The sight of one of the Kids in the Hall covered in sweat, writhing on stage like Iggy Pop, was something he felt comedy fans might enjoy seeing. Naturally, Scott agreed and they uploaded everything - over 600 recordings - onto Bandcamp.

One day in 2019, Mike Sniper of Captured Tracks stumbled upon the Bandcamp page, got in touch, and suggested assembling a compilation of the best recordings to be officially released for the very first time. Waiting for Henry is a collection of 29 tracks over 2 LPs with a booklet of interviews and ephemera from one of the ‘80s last queercore bands. Who is Henry? We don’t really know, but we certainly hope he shows up soon.

TRACK LISTING

1. Sex And Love
2. Be My Hole
3. Heavy Breather
4. Guess I’ll Just Jerk Off Again
5. Wind In My Belly
6. Guilt
7. Band From France
8. Tom
9. Womyn
10. What Is This Thing Called Love?
11. Fascist Love Song
12. Lullaby On Blow
13. Why?
14. We Back Together
15. Young And Alive In 1975
16. Thanks For The Disco
17. A Wig
18. Pepper Pot
19. Lorenzo The Chef
20. Give In
21. The People Have Spoken
22. What Do I Wear On A Trip To The Moon?
23. Christopher
24. Testicle Delight
25. Water Nymph
26. A Queen’s Lament
27. Julie Newmar
28. Madamifesto
29. Let’s Hear It For Show Business

After a four-year hiatus exploring ambient and meditation music, Danish multi- instrumentalist Anders Rhedin has returned to his indie roots. Dream Work, his third album as Dinner, is a lush collection of synth and guitar-laden indie pop that expertly channels Ryuichi Sakamoto, early British indie, and the sound of water.

Like most worthwhile pursuits, the path to Dream Work hasn’t been straight. After signing to Captured Tracks in 2014, he released a series of synth-based avant-pop albums and toured the world with the likes of Mac Demarco, Sean Nicholas Savage, Prince Rama, and King Gizzard, all while splitting his time be - tween Berlin, LA and his native Copenhagen. This whirlwind period ended when, following the release of 2017’s New Work, Rhedin relocated to Copenhagen and took a step back from the Dinner project in order to explore his long standing personal interest in ambient production and guided meditation. Over the last few years, he’s released a series of ambient releases under his own name geared towards meditation, sleep, and relaxation. He’s also led live guided sound baths and meditations at art museums, churches, and rooftops all over the world.

The time away proved fruitful - returning to the Dinner project with fresh eyes, Rhedin sought not to reproduce his previous style, but rather to integrate these two components of his body of work. As a result, Dream Work sounds at once classic and entirely new; a deft balance of Rhedin’s trademark electro-pop with the meditative and organic elements of his ambient work. From the melancholy acoustic guitar and downtempo synth melody of “Spirit Voices” to the ethereal refrain on “Connection”, Rhedin washes his pop songwriting in dark, dreamy tex - tures. These textures lend cohesion to the far-reaching collection - Dinner effort - lessly floats from Stereolab-like electric guitar (“Anima”) to twinkling synth-pop (“Midnight In My Head”) to fluid ambient (“Drøm”) in the span of just 34 minutes. Contributions from labelmates Molly Burch and Charlie Hilton as well as Lina Tullgren, Nicolai Koch help bolster this quality: much like Rhedin himself, Dream Work feels well-traveled even when it’s standing in place.

TRACK LISTING

1. Midnight In My Head
2. How We Talk
3. Big Empty Sky
4. Like You Said
5. Anima
6. Connection
7. Spirit Voices
8. Grateful (Best Shit)
9. Born Again
10. Drøm 

Romantic Images, Molly Burch’s third album, marks a distinct evolution for Burch, both emotionally and sonically. Recorded in Denver with Tennis’ Alaina Moore and Pat Riley producing, the collection celebrates the timeless delights of a well-crafted pop song, flirting with Blondie, Madonna, and even Mariah Carey as it forges a joyful soundtrack to liberation and self-discovery.

Burch deliberately worked with more women collaborators than ever before on the album, and the results are transcendent, reveling in the passion and the power of the divine feminine. The collection prioritizes ecstasy and escape, and Burch’s commitment to collective catharsis in her lifted, airy delivery manages to exude both thoughtful introspection and carefree abandon all at once. The shadow still lurks on the album, to be sure, but the light ultimately wins, and the result is an intoxicating collection all about coming into our truest selves.

When it came to mixing and mastering the material, Burch put her faith in Gloria Kaba (Lauryn Hill, A Tribe Called Quest), Mikaelin “Blue” Bluespruce (Solange Knowles), and Heba Kadry (Bjork, Beach House) to truly understand where she was coming from with the music.

Burch designed the record to mirror the emotional journey that went into creating it, sequencing the music to work its way from jittery indecision to poised certainty over the course of ten mesmerizing tracks. Exhilarating opener “Control” takes a leap of faith as it learns to make peace with letting go, while the infectious “Heart Of Gold” grapples with wanting what you can’t have. By the time the silky “New Beginning” rolls around, Burch begins settling into a newfound sureness that dominates the collection’s second half, with the addictive “Emotion” (a collaboration between Burch and her Captured Tracks labelmate Wild Nothing) celebrating a spectrum of emotions as fuel for creativity.

“I’ve written quite a bit about anxiety and heartbreak in the past,” Burch reflects, “but this record is more inspired by confidence and self-love. This is the most me I’ve ever sounded on an album.”

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: With a pretty legendary lineup of collaborators and producers working in conjunction with Burch, this was never going to be anything but superb. It's with a great deal of pleasure then, that I can confirm her singular writing style and unmistakeable vocal direction is at it's peak here. A brilliantly enjoyable and gorgeously evocative selection, drenched in nostalgic production and clever writing.

TRACK LISTING

1. Control
2. Games
3. Heart Of Gold
4. Romantic Images
5. New Beginning
6. Took A Minute
7. Emotion
8. Honeymoon Phase
9. Easy
10. Back In Time

Austin singer and songwriter Molly Burch returns this new year with a fresh sound on “Emotion’’, a disco-tinged, dynamic shot of adrenaline produced by Captured Tracks label-mate Wild Nothing (Jack Tatum).

In January 2020, Burch headed to Tatum’s hometown of Richmond, Virginia, looking to write new material with a distinct pop sound and production in mind. Sharing some of her latest demos and a playlist of her favorite pop bangers with Tatum, they set out to make a heart-pumping dance track of their own.

On “Emotion”, Burch’s voice is as strong and masterful as ever, pairing a lighter, polished vocal performance - a surprising, but captivatingdeparture from her signature smoky delivery - with Tatum’s compelling bass lines, beats, and shimmering synths. Burch says, “for me, the theme of the song is about feeling a spectrum of emotions, embracing that sensitivity, and using it as fuel to create something positive. “Emotion” is a celebration of being alive.”

TRACK LISTING

Side A: Emotion Feat. Wild Nothing
Side B: Needy

Working under various aliases since 2014 — including CE Schneider Topical, Jepeto Solutions, Christina Schneider’s Genius Grant and now Locate S,1 — Christina Schneider has explored everything from groovy garage rock to minimalist bedroom pop to Syd Barrett-style psychedelia. Buoyed by her desire to create the same “crazy, powerful feeling” she gets when she hears an ABBA or Kate Bush song, she reached again for the outer limits of pop music and recorded Personalia , her sophomore album as Locate S,1 and debut release on Captured Tracks.

Schneider spends much of the album trying to understand and expel a darkness that has come over her (and society at large) in order to live a more fulfilling life. While writing and recording the album in her home studio in Athens, GA, Schneider thought a lot about her own growth and self-worth as an artist, and where her constantly evolving and always experimental music fits in the digital age.  Environmentalism, money, power, and modern feminism formed part of that conversation, too. Throughout Personalia Schneider seeks to address how the attention economy is plaguing us with feelings of FOMO and anxiety, and is causing many of us to abandon their progressive values.

At its core, Personalia is about rebuilding, not rebranding. It’s about evolving and moving forward despite knowing the world is falling apart around you. On the peppy, dance hit “Whisper 2000” Schneider fully embraces this idea: “If you cannot behold my miracle, step away from the vehicle,” she sings with a defiant spring in step.

TRACK LISTING

1. Sanctimitus Detrimitus
2. Whisper 2000
3. Personalia
4. After The Final Rose
5. Classical Toys
6. Even The Good Boys Are Bad
7. Community Porn
8. Hot Wife
9. Hello
10. Futureless Hives Of Bel Air

Occupying the corners between fuzzed-out shoegaze bliss, troubadour poetry, and metallic catharsis, DIIV –– Zachary Cole Smith [lead vocals, guitar], Andrew Bailey [guitar], Colin Caulfield [vocals, bass], and Ben Newman [drums] —— personally inhabit the recesses of their third fulllength album, Deceiver. A whirlwind brought DIIV here. On the heels of 2012’s Oshin, the group delivered the critical and fan favorite Is the Is Are in 2016. Praise came from The Guardian, Spin, Rolling Stone and more. Pitchfork’s audience voted Is the Is Are one of the Top 50 Albums of 2016, as the outlet dubbed it “gorgeous.” Simultaneously, frontman Zachary Cole Smith faced down seemingly dormant demons, and the momentum stalled.

Two years after embarking on a program of recovery, Smith has emerged with a clear head and renewed focus. For the first time, DIIV lived with songs on the road. During a 2018 tour with Deafheaven, they performed eight new compositions as the bulk of the set. The tunes progressed as the players did. By the time DIIV entered 64 Sound to record with producer Sonny Diperri, the band felt a certain confidence.

It’s evident on first single “Skin Game,” which gallops forth on a clean guitar riff before unfolding into a hypnotic hook offset by an off-kilter rhythm and hummable solo. “Being a recovering addict myself,” he says, “there are a lot of questions like, ‘Who are we? What is this disease?’ ‘Skin Game’ looks at where the pain comes from – the personal, physical, emotional, and broader political experiences feeding into the cycle of addiction for millions of us.”

A trudging groove and wailing guitar punctuate a lulling apology on the magnetically melancholic “Taker.” For Smith, it’s “about taking responsibility for your lies, their consequences, and the entire experience.” Meanwhile, the ominous bass line and crawling beat of “Blankenship” devolve into schizophrenic string bends with the vitriolic lyrics. The seven-minute “Acheron” offers a dynamic denouement, flowing through a hulking beat guided under gusts of lyrical fretwork and a distorted heavy apotheosis.

“We’re proud of this, because we earned it as a band,” Cole says. “I’m really happy and grateful just to do it in the first place. I can see the change. It’s not a record full of solutions, but I’m living my life. I’ve examined the consequences of my lies; I’ve got something to say now.”

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: 'Deceiver' is by far the most cohesive and thematically consistent DIIV release yet in a succinct, yet superb catalogue. Swathes of distortion and echoing guitars are expertly laid down before Cole Smith's hypnotic vocals make their mark, coalescing into a lysergic, shoegazing maelstrom.

TRACK LISTING

1. Horsehead
2. Like Before You Were Born
3. Skin Game
4. Honey
5. Taker
6. For The Guilty
7. Lorelai
8. The Spark
9. Blankenship
10. Acheron

Brandon Williams’ second full-length record as Chastity, Home Made Satan , is a new direction for the Whitby, Ontario-native. It’s an emotional and political concept album from the perspective of a young man who’s spent too much time alone, inside, isolated from the world. It’s about fear, and radicalization; an intense meditation on youth and extremism in an increasingly irrational and violent Western World.

Williams, who produces all his own music, set out to create something with a strong cinematic nature. “It’s so visual to me,” he says. “I’m scoring this picture I have, and trying to get it as close to people’s ears as it is in my mind.”

The new songs are gothier and poppier than ever, recalling ‘80s staples like The Cure and Siouxsie and the Banshees. Home Made Satan’s got “a bit more eyeshadow” than 2018’s genre-bending shoegaze-meets-post-hardcore Death Lust , and it’s got pop-punk hooks for days. Home Made Satan , with its lines about commies and American masochism and the Christian right, is meant to sing along to.

And when you do, you’ll mostly be singing about America. About hyper alienation and xenophobia, about the people who don’t have access to community, how people get stuck in their own worlds and become afraid of what’s outside.

“It constantly feels like America is falling apart,” Williams says, and that affects the whole world.

TRACK LISTING

1. Flames
2. Dead Relatives
3. Spirit Meet Up
4. Sun Poisoning
5. Anxiety
6. Last Year’s Lust
7. Bliss
8. The Girls I Know Don’t Think So
9. Still Feel The Same
10. Strif

Mainly recorded and produced at Brooklyn’s Figure 8 Studios, with Ty Ueda later assisting on final tracking at his Mount Misery studio, Lina Tullgren’s Free Cell is masterfully confident. Some rock elements like nonlinear song structures and syncopated rhythms bleed over from the debut album Won era on tracks like “110717,” but the album offers a wider musical palette than its predecessor, with lush arrangements utilizing strings, brass and sculpted synths throughout.

“Golden Babyland” abounds in tension and claustrophobia, finding Tullgren alone and “in the kitchen melting Legos,” while the elegant and introspective ballad “Bad at Parties” scores a moment of quiet social paralysis. The strings (arranged by Simon Hanes) that carry through Free Cell echo back to Tullgren’s education as a classical violinist, and Lina moves deftly between these various soundscapes, resulting in their most dynamic music to date.

Throughout Free Cell , Tullgren looks back on their memories from the position of an analyst, often cool and cynical but always with an undercurrent of humor and deep feeling. In their poetry Lina Tullgren writes anthems for the alienated, for those alone on busses, at parties, at their parents’ house, for those who cannot help but feel lonely even if they are surrounded by others. Free Cell invites us to sit and listen, to reflect, but with no guarantee of any of those things being easy.

TRACK LISTING

1. Free Cell
2. 110717
3. Golden Babyland
4. Bad At Parties
5. Saiddone
6. Soft Glove 1
7. Glowing X 10000
8. Wow, Lucky
9. Soft Again
10. Nervous Yet
11. Soft Glove 2
12. Piano

La Onda de Juan Pablo was a travelogue of sorts, with its anthropological efforts, its parade of Latin American musicians and its choice to only feature Wauters native tongue. Introducing Juan Pablo, on the other hand, goes back and forth between Spanish and English. It is, in short, more faithful to the interculturalism that Wauters experiences daily. "In my house, among my family, we speak in Spanish. But outside in the neighborhood, we speak in English with my friends. Several of them speak in Spanish with their parents, but not all. It doesn't cause me any trouble to go from one language to another. I can express myself in the same way: everything is music." In a nod to both his home country and his adopted home, he includes an English version of "El Hombre de la Calle" ("The Man on the Street") by Jaime Roos, one of the most popular Uruguayan songwriters. The references to the land where he was born are her on the surface. Between the first track ("Super Talking") and the last ("Greetings"), songs run in both languages, culminating with "Lora", which opens like a pop kaleidoscope and ends in a kind of cosmic brotherhood between Eduardo Mateo and Syd Barrett.

His immigrant's side. His sense of belonging. His social life and his use of language. His need to work. And the even stronger need that his work doesn't become monotonous. His dream of another possible world: a world where all worlds fit. Juan Wauters went through all this to introduce us to Juan Pablo. They are the same person: one among the whole crowd.

TRACK LISTING

1. Super Talking
2. Doing Alright
3. Rubia
4. Letter
5. Bolero (Maurice Ravel)
6. Mystery
7. Lonely
8. Mountain
9. Jaime Tortuga
10. El Hombre De La Calle
11. Dos
12. What You Gonna Do
13. Letter (feat. Maxine)
14. Crazy Funny (feat. Maxine)
15. Lora
16. Straighten Up And Lose
17. Saludos

When Bambi and Cole Browning started writing the songs that would be become Reptaliens’ 2017 debut LP, FM-2030, they had no intention of starting a band. Focusing at first on creating music and art on a purely personal level, the project soon took off when the duo brought on Julian Kowalski (guitar) and Tyler Verigin (drums) to form a live band. The fourpiece swiftly delved into songwriting inspired by sci-fi art and literature, cult mentalities, and deep connections. The result is the band’s self-defined genre of “dreamwave,” which connected musical influences ranging from Gary Wilson-inspired jazzy lounge music, the warmth of Broadcast’s recording production, to Todd Rundgren’s outer space synth sounds.

After touring throughout most of 2017 and 2018 with STRFKR, Cults, and Of Montreal, the band returned home and went straight into renowned Portland studio Jackpot to record their sophomore LP, VALIS. Titled after the 1981 Philip K. Dick novel, Valis is a cohesive collection of songs unified in sound and structure and supported by recurring lyrical themes, consistent with Reptaliens’ sound: 80’s analog synthesizers, tape delay echos, and a dreamy blend of guitar lines which ebb and flow throughout Bambi’s melodies. Tracks like “Shuggie 2” and “Sunrise, Sunset” are phantasmagoric, breezy and minimal, resulting in an intimate and personal atmosphere in which the listener can ruminate. Yet, the dynamism of Valis comes from a balance between the band’s more introspective tracks with kinetic synth pop songs such as “Echo Park” and “Give Me Your Love” and and the upbeat guitar driven tracks “Venetian Blinds” and “Baby Come Home”.

With FM-2030, Reptaliens divulged tales from an etic: outsiders perspective of cult kidnappings, alien abductions, and sci-fi speculations towards potential future realities. In Valis, the lense is turned inwards and, through the looking glass, the 12 tracks provides an emic glimpse towards the feelings and situations of the subjective experience.

TRACK LISTING

1. Sunrise, Sunset
2. Venetian Blinds
3. Shuggie 1
4. Shuggie 2
5. Baby Come Home
6. Changing
7. Echo Park
8. Give Me Your Love
9. Song For Moon
10. Wake Up
11. Sweet, Innocent You
12. Heather

When recording their EP ‘MKDRONE,’ duo Jeannie Colleene and Gavin Neves – a/k/a HXXS – were cramped in a San Jose warehouse, sharing a wall with a porn studio. Despite their vocal takes periodically interrupted by even louder and harsher vocal takes echoing in the halls, MKDRONE came together. When prescription medication became the only reprieve for an inoperable tooth infection that had one member sliding between unbearable pain and prescription-induced euphoria, the first single “Seppuku,” the historical Japanese term for suicide by disembowelment, came to fruition. But similar to life with no health insurance and recording music wedged in the walls of a porn studio, HXXS live somewhere between the uncomfortable and the alluring.

Their live show, which consists of any hardware they can get their hands on – drum machines, synthesizers, samplers – is built on loops, making the songs feverish and at times deliberately frenzied to a point of anxiety. However the duo anesthetize this angst with more subdued nods to electronic and post-punk acts of the 80’s, 90’s, 00’s and Present. While their music is undeniably erotic – a tip of the hat to their vocal San Jose neighbours – the EP is what happens when your intrigue with pop culture media and conspiracy theories from the 60’s to present turns obsession. Contemplating the bombardment of modern media and those ill served by it. Women, the LGBTQ+ community, people of colour, victims of white supremacy and the patriarchy.

TRACK LISTING

1. Seppuku
2. Witch Hunt
3. Vices
4. Dripping Mercury
5. Trippin
6. Widowmaker

If I were to tell you that a band of NYC teenagers who met in 1979 decided to form a band influenced by Cabaret Voltaire, Throbbing Gristle, Eno, Chrome and released a privately pressed record, it would be enough to pique your interest. When you find out the band consisted of a future Supreme Court Justice for Arizona, a Professor of Slavic Studies, a Musician/Documentarian whose family built the Brooklyn Bridge, and an A-list world-famous actor the story goes from being about another rare, privately pressed recording that’s been re-discovered, into something that’s pretty incredible.

Captured Tracks is thrilled to announce the reissue of Capital Punishment’s 1982 sole LP Roadkill. For a band of high school weirdos who actually got their shit together enough to make a completely uncommercial album with no means to sell it shows a lot of determination, persistence and perhaps insanity. But it’s always those kinds of weirdos who go on to do great things – just ask Judge Peter Swann, Professor Peter Zusi, Kriss Roebling and Ben Stiller

TRACK LISTING

01. Necronomicon
02. Roadkill
03. Confusion
04. Muzak Anonymous
05. All Just In Passing
06. Delta Time
07. Creatures Of The Dark (Night)
08. Cosmos
09. John’s Forgotten Land (Parts 1, 2, & 3)
10. Necronomicon (Reprise)
11. Waiting To See You
12. Helen 

Australia’s sweetheart, Gabriella Cohen struck gold with the release of her internationally acclaimed debut, Full Closure and No Details in 2016. After extensively touring the album worldwide and sharing the stage with musical heavyweights like The Flaming Lips, Marlon Williams and Rodrigo Amarante, fans and industry alike embraced the dreamy, fuzz-soaked popscapes created by Cohen. The Guardian praised: “Seductive, broody and occasionally sinister,” and it drew four-star reviews from MOJO, UNCUT and Q Magazine.

In the summer of 2017, Cohen moved to a farm in countryside Victoria, Australia, to record and self-produce her second album with engineer and partner-in-crime, Kate ‘Babyshakes’ Dillon. There, amidst flocks of screeching white cockatoos and herds of Black Angus cows, they etched the beginning of Pink Is The Colour Of Unconditional Love. The record was almost complete when the band was invited to join Foxygen’s U.S tour, compelling the girls to finish the album on the road. Armed with a microphone and an interface, Dillon and Cohen captured the final touches on a boat in England, the coast of Portugal; in the mountains of Southern Italy, cafes of Mexico, and finally in Venice Beach, Los Angeles.

Pink Is The Colour is an expansive and exciting body of work, showcasing Cohen’s unusually refreshing twists on pop arrangements. ‘Baby’ was born in the graveyard of unrequited love, while ‘Music Machine’ became a swagger of sultry defiance set in LA. Throughout the new album Cohen creates complex and sugary backing vocals. These signature vocal arrangements—contoured with classic harmonies and nostalgic melodies—form songs remarkable in their originality. Honest heartache is woven into glory throughout the record, and during eleven tracks a candid, almost ethereal self-portrait of its songwriter emerges. For Gabriella Cohen, it’s an epitaph of electric wonder, and a definitive fact: Pink is the Colour of Unconditional Love.

“A modern psychedelic prophet who layers drawling vocals, heartache, and healing over a background of Velvet Underground-esque guitar distortion.” - Rookie Mag

TRACK LISTING

1. Music Machine
2. Baby
3. I Feel So Lonely
4. Miserable Baby
5. Mercy
6. Change
7. Neil Young Goes Crazy
8. Recognise My Fate
9. Morning Light
10. Hi Fidelity
11. Sky Rico

Guitarless Guitar Music. This is the self-imposed one-line description chosen by Auckland, New Zealand’s Wax Chattels. The keyboard, bass and drums trio don’t have a guitar player, but their overwhelming sound and energy create an atmosphere akin to a traditional power trio though their music is anything but traditional. They create darkly hypnotic and frenetic music that’s rhythmically complex and sinister; there’s heavily treated keyboards, unrestrained basslines and punishingly simple drums. And, it’s loud.

Peter (keyboards/vocals), Amanda (bass/vocals) and Tom (drums) met while studying Jazz Performance at the University of Auckland. After living abroad, completing Law School and/or performing in a myriad of other music-related projects, they started Wax Chattels, working up their material for a year prior to recording. “We tracked the songs as a live band to capture the energy of the live show, restricting ourselves to instruments which we play live and keeping all production to a minimum to focus on the band’s sound itself.”

Live, they are not to be missed. While they do come across as a “rock” band, it’s coming from so many places so quickly that you’re kind of left wondering where you’re going. The opening of the one-chord tour de force “Concrete” begins in a downright frightening and jarring place and ends up in a Krautrock-via-Suicide crescendo. It was after a particularly insane live performance that they were signed by both Captured Tracks and Flying Nun Records on the spot.

Wax Chattels recall the other side of Kiwi underground rock history that’s a bit less sunny and a bit less jangly. The small, yet constantly groundbreaking nation has put forth a new act and album that demands your attention.

TRACK LISTING

1. Concrete
2. Stay Disappointed
3. It
4. Gillian
5. In My Mouth
6. Shrinkage
7. Career
8. NRG
9. Parallel Lines
10. Facebook

Captured Tracks have the album you've all been waiting for. Mac Demarco's 'This Old Dog' is finally upon us and for long-term fans or new listeners alike, it's a treat. Starting with the warming tribute, 'My Old Man' which begins rich with woody CR78 percussion and sumptuous acoustic guitar, soon to break into Demarco's unmistakeable vocal drawl. As the chorus grows from the tapestry of sound, the warmth of the reticent synth swells surrounds the stero image in a comforting blanket of organic haze. It's indicative of Demarco's earlier work, but more confidently approached, brilliantly minimal still but undeniably rich in it's simplicity. 

'Baby You're Out' grows from a more off-centred rhythmic approach but undergoes a shuffling transformation to swoon into the folky redux of the main choral refrain, it's an approach that could be jarring but in the capable sonwriting hands of the man himself, it predictably goes by without a hitch. Speaking of transformations, Mac seems to undergo a tranformation himself from shuffled syncopator into sleazy lounge singer in the oozingly laid-back 80's synth sizzle of 'For The First Time'. Decending digital pads and simmering DX7 tines coalesce into a melting-pot of reverb and polyester garments. 

There are pieces here like 'Sister' that really display the no-frills talent that has endeared us all to him for so long, comprising of hazy pitch-shifted guitar sitting right back in the mix while heartbreaking lyrics swim ever so briefly around the wistful plucking. 'Dreams From Yesterday' oozes with crackling tubes and hazy summer dreams to counteract the minimal aura of it's precident. And so it continues, from warm and full-bodied to cold and reticent, there isn't a bad moment here, only different emotions conveyed through a variety of techniques, and every one of them perfectly executed. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Mine says: "Mac DeMarco must be some kind of joke act, right?" Has this thought ever crossed your mind? I came across it in a festival review and I felt for the poor guy who just didn't seem to get what Vernor Winfield McBriare Smith IV (I'll give you a moment to let that settle in...) is all about. If you can relate but somehow feel intrigued, 'This Old Dog' is your perfect entryway into the wacky world of Mac DeMarco. It seems like everyone's favourite sleaze man is trying to show us that he has grown up, without having lost an inch of his quirkiness. It is okay to be vulnerable sometimes, the songs about his troubled relationship with his father seem to confess, just don't bury your head in the sand. 'This Old Dog' is stripped back, simpler and therefore easier to digest than his previous outings. It's dreamy and reflective but always light-hearted, and will leave you with a warm, fuzzy feeling in your chest. Careful, though, you might feel like you're floating on a cloud.

TRACK LISTING

1. My Old Man
2. This Old Dog
3. Baby You’re Out
4. For The First Time
5. One Another
6. Still Beating
7. Sister
8. Dreams From Yesterday
9. A Wolf Who Wears Sheeps Clothes
10. One More Love Song
11. On The Level
12. Moonlight On The River
13. Watching Him Fade Away

It’s a debut that plays the part without succumbing to it, more pastel romantic comedy than sepia historic drama. There are stylistic nods to Springsteen and Dire Straits, Arthur Russell’s more folk-leaning output, the various collaborations of Tom Petty & Jeff Lynne. But Thomas seems intent on conveying his specific take on these things over emulating them; you get the impression that he’s just as inspired by karaoke renditions of “I’m On Fire” or “Romeo and Juliet” as he is by the originals. And the stories he tells are full of intimate moments and observations: a walk home from a lover’s apartment, a long night drive back upstate, a quiet Wednesday morning existential crisis; musings as to the significance of a Winona Ryder portrait on the wall of a stranger’s bedroom; the sense of discovery that comes with being young in a city with a new person, and the sense of loss when that novelty is gone. Another Age is indoor music at its most expansive, rock and roll held at arm’s length

TRACK LISTING

01. Another Age
02. I Remember
03. Cryin’
04. The Weather
05. Wednesday Morning
06. Winona Forever
07. My Fault
08. What Am I Gonna Do
09. Word Of Mouth

Debut album from Reptaliens featuring members of Blouse, Wampire, Brainstorm and Woolen Men.

Portland, Oregon’s Reptaliens is the husband and wife team of Cole and Bambi Browning. The couple met on a basketball court while filming a music video for a mutual friend’s band that didn’t exist. The two knew almost instantly they were soulmates; after dating for six months they married under a blanket of smoke from the season’s forest fires.

Named in reverence for their interests in cult mentality transhumanism, and conspiracy theories, Reptaliens quickly evolved from a bedroom recording project to a full-fledged band that explores fringe pop culture through analogue synthesizers, electric guitars, melodic basslines and Bambi’s lulling vocals. The pair’s songwriting mirrors their strong connection. As Cole says, “Bambi and I write all the music. Sometimes we work together to construct songs and sometimes I’ll come home from work and she’ll have a masterpiece finished and perfectly crafted. We both add to each other’s songs and none really seem completely Bambi’s or mine. We do everything together.”

Inspired by all things science fiction, writers like Philip K. Dick and Haruki Murakami and music ranging from Paul McCartney / Wings to African artists Francis Bebey and Nahawa Doumbia, the band creates psychedelic, chameleonic dreamscapes that fall sonically and visually somewhere between abstract expressionism and surrealism. These ideas and influences all coalesce on ‘FM-2030’ - named after the renowned transhumanist writer and philosopher - the band’s debut album on Captured Tracks.

Thematically based around obsession, Bambi says she “gravitates toward other people’s obsessions and draws inspiration from them. I like to think of method acting and personify myself as the obsessor, writing from their perspective. I love pretending and creating around these personalities.” This play-acting on record translates to the band’s sincere and theatrical live performances that involve homemade costumes and on-stage guest appearances from a giant reptile man.

‘FM-2030’ was recorded at famed Portland studio The Green House with Riley Geare. As longtime active participants in the Portland music scene, Bambi and Cole called on a number of talented musicians for Reptaliens’ recordings and live performances, including Julian Kowalski (guitar), Bryson Hansen (synth) and Tyler Vergian (drums). However, Cole is quick to note, “Reptaliens is a concept more so than a band or any group of individuals. Those who are willing to let go and open themselves up to new experiences will be rewarded and emboldened. Those who want to turn away will have no choice but to look. The truth is out there.”

TRACK LISTING

29 Palms
If You Want
Simulation
666Bus
These Days
Satan’s Song
Nunya
Butter Slime
Forced Entry
Dreaming
Ubik

Dinner is Danish producer and singer Anders Rhedin. Following the release of his EP collection and last year’s debut album, ‘Psychic Lovers’, the now LA-based artist presents New Work on Captured Tracks.

With ‘New Work’, Dinner had a wish to do things differently. “I just needed to get back to the approach I used when I was still self-releasing cassettes, back in Copenhagen. I spent way too much time on the previous record. I was sitting in front of a computer-screen alone for seven months working on it, obsessing over it. This time I wanted to work very fast in order to think less. I wanted to collaborate more. I hoped that other people’s presence would keep my perfectionism in check.”

Dinner enlisted Josh da Costa (Regal Degal, Ducktails) to produce the album with him. He and Josh worked in the night time at off hours at a studio in an industrial part of downtown LA. The album’s songs were recorded on the spot with no preparation time. In-between studio sessions, Dinner recorded and overdubbed material in his apartment on an early 80s 4-track recorder.

“We did very little editing, we just tried to record what was there. You’ll hear a lot of first-takes on the record. The best part of the process was driving home early in the morning though the empty streets of LA, listening to the night’s recordings. Because it was such an immediate experience.”

The two previous Dinner releases were recorded in Berlin and Copenhagen with mostly European musicians. This isn’t the case on ‘New Work’, which features performances by Andy White (Tonstartssbandht), Charlie Hilton (Blouse), Rori McCarthy (Infinite Bisous, Connan Moccasin), Staz Lindes (Paranoyds) and a duet with Sean Nicholas Savage. “A lot of my favorite music is American. I thought it would be fun to go a little bit less Euro on this one. I’m plenty Euro by myself, some might say. I wanted to add a different color.”

Asked to describe the sound of ‘New Work’ after the first listen, Captured Tracks owner Mike Sniper texted: “Julian Cope, 60’s Baroque Pop, early 70’s Canterbury Sound, Japan, Ryuichi Sakamato, ‘Raspberry Beret’-era Prince... Need to listen a few more times before anything concrete comes!”

TRACK LISTING

Un-American Woman
Don’t Belong
Walk Away
Siren Song
Marble Eyes
Illusions
Get Real
Copenhagen
Waitin’
Thwl

Gabriella Cohen’s debut solo full-length is the product of ten days and two microphones. Co-produced alongside close friend, bandmate and engineer Kate ‘Babyshakes’ Dillon, the record is the result of what Cohen describes as the “ceremony” of reflecting on a relationship.

The album’s raw, personal side could be traced back to its place of birth at Dillon’s parents’ place in the country, or to the Brisbane streets the songs were composed in. The songs are soaked in the kind of aching nostalgia that is tinged with equal measures of sadness and triumph. On ‘I Don’t Feel So Alive’ Cohen warns: “This could be the last time we get together” and on one hand it’s melancholy but it’s in the spirit of endings that are also beginnings. After finishing the record, Cohen and Dillon hit the road down Australia’s East Coast, from Brisbane to Melbourne, a truck full of instruments and gear following in their wake.

There are two sides to Cohen’s coin though - for every moment of raw, cutting emotion, there’s one of otherworldly ethereality. It’s what makes the record feel timeless, which doesn’t mean old-fashioned - it means that the vocoder on ‘Feelin’ Fine’ and the fuzzy, frenzied drums of ‘Alien Anthem’ don’t feel at odds with the dreamy, ambling melodies and old-school ethos at the heart of Cohen’s songwriting.

‘Full Closure And No Details’ is a definitional labour of love: when Cohen talks about her collaborators she sounds like she’s talking about her family - her bass player and backing singers, ring-ins that recorded after Cohen and Dillon finished up in the country, are ‘dear friends’; and Dillon is her ‘sister’. The songs were written on Cohen’s grandpa’s nylon string guitar and ‘Piano Song’ was recorded on Dillon’s parents’ old, out-of-tune upright, the same piano she learned on as a child.

“‘Full Closure And No Details’ is quietly impressive - a slowburning fusion of defiance and heartache.” - The Guardian

TRACK LISTING

Beachs
I Don’t Feel So Alive
Sever The Walls
Yesterday
Piano Song
Feelin’ Fine
Downtown
Dream Song
This Could Be Love
Alien Anthem

Matteo Vallicelli is an Italian drummer and composer, best known as the live drummer of The Soft Moon and Death Index and as a founding member of many renowned Italian punk bands. This winter he debuts his first solo project, ‘Primo’, on Captured Tracks.

In 2013, Vallicelli relocated from the ancient neighbourhood of Trastevere in Rome to the ever-changing Kreuzberg district in Berlin. This dramatic uprooting acted as a catalyst, inspiring him to try and make music on his own. Heavily inspired by the pulsating techno scene of the German capital, Vallicelli began experimenting with synthesizers and drum machines. Recording sounds onto his computer and cassette tapes led him to create a massive collection of loops and samples, sometimes in protracted home sessions where he wouldn’t leave his apartment for days.

For Vallicelli, the transition from playing drums in punk bands to sitting alone in his home studio, working on minimalistic electronic compositions, has dramatically shifted his music career. “Being in charge of everything can be disorienting. Having no other band members to work or fight with… I would end up with hours of music that I would endlessly edit on my computer. It took me years to learn how to limit myself, to finish up a project and move on to something else. But, as soon as I mastered that, I was able to assemble my first album quickly.”

Songs like ‘Michelangelo’ and ‘Frammenti’ were born as techno tracks but, through subtraction, became something different and more representative of the introspective state in which they were created. These two tracks opened up a path for the rest of the music on the Primo, in which most of the songs have no traces of drums or percussive elements, marking a new, liberating way for Vallicelli to make music. The result of three years of experimentation, Primo is ultimately an exercise in self-limitation and discovery.

TRACK LISTING

Frammenti
Nuova Notte
Il Balletto Delle Stelle
Lacrime In Estate
Giungla Elettrica
Lausitzer Platz
Michelangelo
Arpeggio Due
Come Un Gatto
Futuro
Ore Di Tempesta

When EZTV lead singer, songwriter and guitarist Ezra Tenenbaum sings, “Facedown on the concrete, While I dream of wider streets” on ‘States Of Confusion’ you can hear weariness in his voice and a touch of wistful ‘what if’ longing for more room, a little less hassle, a few more trees... maybe even a garage to park the 8-track machine.

The shining ‘High Flying Faith’ - the first song written for the album - is a refutation of urban weariness, its title perhaps acting as a makeshift motto for the optimism (and stubbornness) that is key to New York bands like EZTV. Inspired by the lyrics of ‘Broken Heart’ by Skip Spence, it’s a 12-string-propelled nugget that best shows how EZTV operate: toeing the line between past and present, with a keen ear for left-of-the-dial experimentation that never lets the songs hew too far into pastiche and genre nostalgia.

Many of the band’s foundational inspirations - the Feelies’ upstart jangle, the upside-down pop architecture of Arthur Russell’s power pop band The Necessaries, Shoes’ aching harmonies - are back in play on ‘High In Place’, their sophomore album, though new instruments and feels abound throughout. Produced and engineered by the band themselves, a baby grand piano rings and 12-string acoustic guitars shimmer throughout the album, recalling the cleareyed production techniques of Jeff Lynne.

Taking advantage of tour stopovers, trips to attend weddings, or even just commandeering someone’s vacation for a few days, EZTV invited some likeminds and fellow songwriters into the studio - Jenny Lewis, Chris Cohen, Martin Courtney and Matt Kallman of Real Estate, John Andrews of Quilt, Nic Hessler and Mega Bog - to guest on ‘High In Place’.

Aptly recorded on a tape machine purchased from a Lower East Side Studio that was going out of business, in a space where the New York City skyline both loomed and inspired through its glass windows, ‘High In Place’ is an album of golden pop songs worthy of any era.

“Low on drama but high on seemingly effortless jangle pop brilliance, [debut] ‘Calling Out’ feels like a long-lost classic and an exciting discovery.” - All Music

TRACK LISTING

High Flying Faith
Racing Country
Reason To Run
Clear
States Of Confusion
Hammock
Temporary Gold
Still
How Long’s It Gonna Be
Goodbye Morning

Dinner is Danish producer and singer Anders Rhedin. Dinner leads a nomadic existence, dividing his time between Los Angeles, Copenhagen and Berlin. So far Dinner has released three EPs and a guided hypnosis tape. Now he presents his debut album ‘Psychic Lovers’.

Whether the finished album lives up to Dinner’s vision only Dinner knows. Musically, the album exists in its own space between the 1980s, 1990s and the present. The songs are pop songs held together by somewhat idiosyncratic arrangements.

Opener ‘Cool As Ice’ sounds like the soundtrack to David Lynch directing ‘Miami Vice’ with overdriven synthetic strings and an equally eerie and funky slap bass that slowly grow into a pop structure.

‘Turn Me On’ invokes the feeling of Sade recorded on VHS fronted by Klaus Nomi’s baryton-possessed ghost, or a warped jingle from The Home Shopping Network.

The song ‘Lie’ has distinct Nico-esque undertones and John Cale-ish overtones wrapped in 1980s melancholy, while ‘Wake Up’ and ‘The World’ explore inverted 90s Euro-pop.

In the words of mix-engineer Filip Nicolic (Poolside), “The whole album sounds like Chimo Bayo produced by Marquis de Sade.” An even more concise definition of Dinner comes from labelmate Mac Demarco: “Great face, great body, great tunes.”

TRACK LISTING

Cool As Ice
The World
Turn Me On
Gone
What You Got
Wake Up
Holy Fuck!
A.F.Y.
Lie
Kali, Take Me Home

Charlie Hilton, known up until now for her work in the band Blouse, has now forged a new identity with her debut solo album, ‘Palana’.

It should come as no surprise that many of the songs on ‘Palana’ are concerned with shifting characters, forms and ideas. The album’s title itself is a nod to Hilton’s given Sanskrit name, an identity she shed completely after high school in favour of the androgynous ‘Charlie’ and Palana’s overarching theme can be summed up by a quote from Hermen Hesse’s Steppenwolf, a phrase Hilton cites as a personal mantra: “Man is not by any means of fixed and enduring form… he is much more an experiment and a transition”

Enlisting Unknown Mortal Orchestra’s Jacob Portrait as producer, Hilton freely experimented with diverse sounds and moods - some minimal and some cacophonous - out of the confines of a band structure. ‘Funny Anyway’ is truly stark, featuring only string accompaniments, with Hilton assuming a role akin to a confessional French chanteuse, while ‘Let’s Go To A Party’ is Hilton’s cheeky take on an icy dance track with thick, bouncing synths and a chorus that echoes “I’m only happy when I’m dancing.” Alternatively, tracks like ‘Pony’ harken back to the psychedelic strengths of Blouse, saluting bands like Broadcast and United States Of America and then there’s ‘100 Million’, the sole track produced by Woods’ Jarvis Taveniere that rounds out the album in a soft, acoustic and light-hearted way with labelmate Mac DeMarco lending his talents on percussion and back-up vocals.

This wide range of moods on ‘Palana’ recall several of Hilton’s key influences - the solemn beauty of Nico, the whimsical nature of Marc Bolan and the naïveté of Jonathan Richman - but the album is undeniably the work of one artist, perhaps best summed up by the artist herself: “The music on this record is diverse, but so is the inside of a person. I feel like I’m many people.”

STAFF COMMENTS

Andy says: A very good record that's hard to pin down, as it mixes lots of styles from krautrock grooves, dream-pop floatiness, psych and library sounds, blending the electronic with the organic in such a clever way. Stereolab fans will love this.

TRACK LISTING

Palana
Something For Us All
Pony
Long Goodbye
Funny Anyway
WHY
Let’s Go To A Party
Snow
The Young
No One Will
100 Million

Like the days of Steely Dan, Harry Nilsson or Prince releasing a classic every year (or less) comes Mac DeMarco's Another One, a mini-LP announced almost one year to the date of the meteorically successful Salad Days. Conceived and recorded entirely by himself in a short period between a relentless tour schedule at his new place in Far Rockaway, Queens, Another One is eight, freshly written songs, expanding the arsenal of Mac's already impressive catalog. There’s a bittersweet, romantic sensibility present. The overall feeling is lost love, or perhaps love never found, yet Mac embraces this without making it an overly somber experience for the listener. It’s at times haunting and warm, and a bit more refined and sophisticated, but still plenty playful, retaining the guts and soul of classic Mac.

TRACK LISTING

1 The Way You'd Love Her
2 Another One
3 No Other Heart
4 Just To Put Me Down
5 A Heart Like Hers
6 I've Been Waiting For Her
7 Without Me
8 My House By The Water

Gayna Florence Perry and Robin Surtees are perhaps best known for their work with cult Eighties band Shiny Two Shiny. Signed to Red Flame Records, they released one mini LP entitled ‘Halfway Across The Rainbow’ and one single ‘Waiting For us’ c/w ‘Ritual Hate’, in 7” and 12” formats. A mixture of bright and breezy synth pop with some darker undercurrents both records made a dent in the indie charts gaining positive reviews in the music press for releases and live appearances and acclaim from John Peel as well as daytime airplay on Radio 1. They also toured Europe and appeared on TV. At the start of 1984 the band played at the ‘Big Brother’ music festival at the ICA in London, supporting Pink Industry. But by this time the writing was on the wall for Shiny Two Shiny.

TRACK LISTING

1. Waiting For Us
2. Razzamatazz
3. Concentration
4. Through The Glass
5. Grey
6. Moment To Moment
7. Rain
8. Ritual Hate
9. Susquehanna
10. Waiting For Us (12” Single Mix)
11 . Seven Four ( Live In Brussels)
12. Boy From Ipanema
13. Waiting For Us 7”
14. Wake

THIS IS A RECORD STORE DAY 2014 EXCLUSIVE, LIMITED TO ONE PER PERSON.

After the August release of their new LP ‘To The Happy Few’, shoegaze pioneers Medicine continue to embellish their return from an 18 year hiatus with this radio session at Part Time Punks.

Following their first show in nearly two decades, Medicine add to an already rich creative and sonic legacy which has seen singer Beth Thompson, guitarist/vocalist Brad Laner, and drummer Jim Goodall continually challenge the barriers of melody and noise in their LPs ‘Shot Forth Self Living’ (1992), ‘The Buried Life’ (1993) and ‘Her Highness’ (1995).

This beautiful, very limited tri-color wax LP is only available for RSD.

Limited to 200 copies for the UK and Ireland.

'Salad Days', is the follow up to 2012's lauded 'Mac DeMarco 2' which saw the Edmonton local propelled into the limelight. Written and recorded around a relentless tour schedule (which picked up all over again as soon as the LP was done), 'Salad Days' gives the listener a very personal insight into what it's all about to be Mac amidst the craziness of a rising career in a very public format.

The lead single, "Passing Out Pieces," set to huge overdriven organ chords, contains lines like "..never been reluctant to share, passing out pieces of me.." Clearly, this isn't the same record that breezily gave us "Dreamin," and "Ode to Viceroy" but the result of what comes from their success. "Chamber of Reflection," a track featuring icy synth stabs and soulful crooning, wouldn't be out of place on a fantasy Shuggie Otis and Prince collaboration. Standout tracks like these show Mac's widening sound, whether insights into future directions or even just welcome one-off forays into new territory.

Still, this is musically, lyrically and melodically good old Mac DeMarco, through and through. The same crisp John Lennon/Phil Spector era homegrown lush production that could have walked out of Geoff Emerick's mixing board in 1972, but with that peculiar Mac touch that's completely of right now.

TRACK LISTING

1. Salad Days
2. Blue Boy
3. Brother
4. Let Her Go
5. Goodbye Weekend
6. Let My Baby Stay
7. Passing Out Pieces
8. Treat Her Better
9. Chamber Of Reflection
10. Go Easy
11. Jonny's Odyssey

Perfect Pussy are one of the boldest and most intriguing projects to surface in recent years, garnering widespread critical acclaim following the release of a four song EP, titled I have lost all desire for feeling. Veiled beneath layers of exquisitely abrasive noise, frontwoman Meredith Graves’ lyrics are disarming, brutally honest and poetic, possessing a feverish intensity that can only be matched by Graves’ electric stage presence. Hailing from Syracuse, New York, the band is comprised of members from the local punk and hardcore community.

Since releasing their 4 song demo cassette I Have Lost All Desire for Feeling in late 2013, Perfect Pussy have taken the music world by storm. Their harsh yet refreshing lyrics paired with the assaulting vocals of singer Meredith Graves drew in audiences from all crowds. While often muffled by the wall of sound built buy the guitar, bass, drums and synth, it is the brutal truths of Graves’ lyrics and the power of her live delivery that has had everyone from Rolling Stone to Pitchfork to The New York Times praising the power of this rising band. With Say Yes to Love Perfect Pussy have begun to hone their sound while retaining the rough around the edges noise that first drew listeners in. The first track, “Driver”, grabs the listner and drags them into the chaotic world of this brief but powerful album. The songs kick and punch but it is the dense, honest lyrics that will make the listener feel the most. Filled with conflict and confidence and despare and desire, these are songs that stay with the listener long after the album has ended.

“These punk kids from the mean streets of Syracuse, New York, deliver high-energy slabs of mayhem-friendly post punk noise, a wall of guitar and Casio. Meredith Graves knows how to run her mosh pit like a dictator runs a birthday party.” Rolling Stone.

“In just four short songs, Perfect Pussy has spoken more truths than many artists with 20-year-spanning discographies, and with news of a debut full-length in the works, now is probably a good time to start bracing yourselves. It might get a little uncomfortable, but trust me, the shake-up is worth it.” Complex.

“One of the boldest new rock bands.” Pitchfork.

TRACK LISTING

1. Driver (2:16)
2. Bells (1:41)
3. Big Stars (2:19)
4. Work (2:08)
5. Interference Fits (3:30)
6. Dig (1:23)
7. Advance Upon The Real (5:04)
8. VII (4:36)

Soft Metals is an electronic duo formed in 2009 by Ian Hicks and Patricia Hall currently based in Los Angeles, California. They met in late 2008 at a DJ night hosted by Patricia in Portland. Work began on their self produced, self recorded 2nd LP "Lenses" in the summer of 2012. They sketched out what would become the song "Lenses" and work then continued into the fall and winter. When they went into recording album 2 they wanted to focus more on a sound with beats and rhythms you can move your body to, melodies you can connect with emotionally, and vocals that coax your mind into a dreamy introspective luminal space.

The idea behind "Lenses" is about breaking out of thought patterns and previously held ways of seeing yourself and the surrounding world. Lenses; a continuation of their ethos aiming directly at your body and subconscious mind with an intimacy that only lovers can bring. The song “Lenses” describes the experience of shifted consciousness with the lyrics “breaking through my perception of you, breaking through my concept of life”. It celebrates the feeling of escape from a mind imprisoned with lack of presence and stuck in habit all set to an earnest beat and lush enigmatic melodies that entwine and seduce.

“Tell Me”, “No Turning Back”, When I Look Into Your Eyes” expresses that nervous, vulnerable feeling of falling for someone, but questioning the reality of the situation asking “Is this love true? Or are we just lost in lust?”, “when you said you loved me, I laid my whole life down”, “When I look into your eyes, I wonder if we’ll meld”. “In the Air”, perhaps the most movement inspiring track of the album, is a dense, pulsating piece about the power of nature, the effects of seasonal changes on all living things that rule over sexuality, productivity, and inspiration- the basis of man’s various forms of mysticism.

TRACK LISTING

1. Lenses
2. Tell Me
3. When I Look Into Your Eyes
4. No Turning Back
5. Hourglass
6. On A Cloud
7. In The Air
8. Interobserver

A strong love for classic 60s/70s guitar pop (Beach Boys, Beatles) as well as soft spots for Prince and Hall & Oates display his self proclaimed 'fascination with pop music'. While his influences certainly shape his work, it is his natural ear for melody and movement which make Calder's work both fluid and engaging.

His knack and ambition both in his song writing and production provide a solid foundation for Calder's music to drift in an out of psychy realms. There are no over drenched chorus or walls of sound, instead leaving space for melody and texture to beneatly co-existent. Alex has found the sweet spot between slacker-pop jangle and snug rhymtic production to create reassurance his songs are going somewhere. Intimate handclaps and shakers make it easy for one to visualize the living from which it came as Calder's questions what to do with his time both literally and existentially.

TRACK LISTING

1. Sukie And Me
2. Light Leave Your Eyes
3. Location
4. Time
5. Captivate
6. Fatal Delay
7. Lethargic

Now, all of six months later, Mac is back with his first proper full length, Mac DeMarco 2. As opposed to RNRNC, “2” is a concerted effort to produce a cohesive work that showcases Mac’s natural ability as a songwriter, singer and producer. With a new arsenal of recording gear, the fidelity has substantially improved without compromising the immediacy and organic quality of his prior releases under any monicker. The results are immediately rewarding, from the warm “Cooking Up Something Good” to the heartfelt “My Kind of Woman.” It’s obvious Mac is presenting himself musically in the most sincere way possible, no matter what happens in his wild videos or live shows. “Freaking out the Neighborhood,” Mac’s apologetic ode to his loved ones about such public behavior, shows that Mac DeMarco is still with us, coming along for the ride, getting everyone else in trouble. Even so, the maturation process of Mac DeMarco, recording artist, is in full swing. He did, after all, turn 22 this April.

TRACK LISTING

1. Cooking Up Something Good
2. Dreamin'
3. Freaking Out The Neighborhood
4. Annie
5. Ode To Viceroy
6. Robson Girl
7. The Stars Keep On Calling My Name
8. My Kind Of Woman
9. Boe Zaah
10. Sherrill
11. Still Together

Texas native John Pena began writing and performing under the Heavenly Beat guise in the latter part of 2009. John emerged from his bedroom after months of leisurely paced recording with a couple of tracks that would become his first release on Captured Tracks in the form of the 7 inch single “Suday”. Being influenced by nothing in particular has payed off as many have had trouble pinning the sound down as anything other than “immaculately arranged and paced” and “attractive music for attractive people”. Thus again proving that just because you’ve heard a song by The Cure or Neil Young doesn’t mean you have to ape it shamelessly to gain wide acceptance. Shortly after the release of “Suday” Heavenly Beat released the A side “Faithless” for their forthcoming 2nd single, igniting not only the blog world but the interest of the uninformed few who might have missed “Suday”. By paying homage to no one but himself, John Pena’s band has become one to watch in 2012.

“Heavenly Beat is the solo project of Beach Fossil’s John Pena, described in a super-adept pun by Oh My Rockness as ‘piña colada pop.’ Pena sings about being hurt inside and out, but the party drums and guitars suggest only good times. The perfect song is a little of both.” The Fader.

STAFF COMMENTS

Ryan says: Noticably different from his work in Beach Fossils, Jon Pena shows us what he's made of. Songs like Faithless just trigger super-8 movies in my head of people running into waves and it just looks like the most fun ever.

TRACK LISTING

1. Lust
2. Messiah
3. Faithless
4. Tolerance
5. Elite
6. Talent
7. Hurting
8. Tradition
9. Presence
10. Influence
11. Consensual

Debut EP from the Canadian eccentric Mac Demarco. This record of weirdo blues rock is amazing. Think Scott Walker meets Ariel Pink. Mac DeMarco, formerly Makeout Videotape, is the anti-thesis to your stereotypical singer-songwriter. Disregarding the seriously somber moments, he replaces them with whimsical and youthful spontaneity, whilst retaining the endearing and subtle commentaries that exude his familiarity. Promptly after leaving his Edmonton garage for Vancouver he embarked on a North American tour accompanying fellow Canadians Japandroids on a grand voyage of enlightenment and alcoholic debauchery.

DeMarco's a weird cat cultivating an affinity for occult imagery, nudity and social satire. But his most impressive trait is his undeniable and instinctual ability to compose magical pop jangles, of which he'll likely refer to as "jizz jazz". His dusted jams have garnished him accolades that are as ever-increasing as his song writing abilities; his sound rendering comparisons, but in a nomadic fashion alluding no distinct origin. Come March DeMarco's debut solo EP entitled Rock And Roll Night Club will ramble into the great unknown guided by Captured Tracks, DeMarco's inner Elvis a tow.

TRACK LISTING

1. Rock And Roll Night Club
2. 96.7 The Pipe
3. Baby's Wearing Blue Jeans
4. One More Tear To Cry
5. European Vegas
6. 106.2 Breeze FM
7. She's Really All I Need
8. Moving Like Mike
9. Me And Jon, Hanging On
10. I'm A Man
11. Only You
12. Me & Mine

Coming up on a year since their debut self titled LP release (one of the best albums of 2010, hands down!), The Soft Moon presents 'Total Decay', Luis Vasquez continues to conjure a sound fueled tempest that intoxicates with its own post-apocalyptic dust in this new EP!

After two stirring 7" releases and the aforementioned debut album, it was apparent that Vasquez was digging his own niche, an intimate well-spoken whisper, carrying a heavy load of synths that creep and drums that command an uncontrollable pull from within. This intimate peak into another world, Vasquez' mind, has garnered a number of comparisons to some of the most iconic and influential bands of the post punk and krautrock movements.

Live, the band takes on Justin Anastasi and Damon Way to help transform the listening experience cogently with an array of sound and light effects that translate the energy of the recordings. 'Total Decay' solidifies that the Soft Moon is on its own path, not to be compared. Just listen, hold the shadow of his hand on this journey into the darkness, as he whispers directions through the obstacles, to the light...

TRACK LISTING

1. Repetition
2. Alive
3. Total Decay
4. Visions

Patricia Hall and her boyfriend Ian Hicks have been enchanting one another with song since the spring of 2009. Their first meeting was an audition. Ian was looking for a voice to compliment his moody, cinematic synthesizer sketches and Patricia hoped to meet the right partner to help put her day dreamy poems and keyboard melodies to music. Their mutual love of early 80s synth pop, the nascent incarnations of house and techno, ebm, krautrock, post punk, and the first wave of industrial music set the course. After a few sessions together the partnership proved to be exactly what they had both been searching for and Soft Metals was born.

What began as a collaboration between songwriters soon budded into a passionate love affair. Song lyrics became secret messages, with which Patricia confessed her developing affection for Ian. The Portland-based duo's first five original works together, which became the EP "The Cold World Melts", released on Captured Tracks, is a time capsule of this courtship. This summer marks the release of their first full length, a self-titled release with Captured Tracks.

The album is a further expression of their romance, but now - 2 years into their relationship - the two are looking a bit more outward. They explore fantastical soundscapes which conjure the dramatic cinematic worlds of Dario Argento, Roman Polanski, Stanley Kubrick, David Lynch, and the Czech New Wave. Ultra-saturated colors with a touch of noir, opulent architecture, and mysterious femmes all spring to mind. From the deep examinations of the human psyche found in Adam Curtis documentaries (the subject matter of their track "Psychic Driving"), to the controversial bridge between science and the soul via Carl Sagan and Ray Kurzweil, the duo revels in the trans-formative power of love, knowledge, and imagination. The outcome of all this is a collection of bittersweet electronic pop songs balanced by a delicate surrealism, a patient sense of experimentation that leaves you floating in your subconscious and moving to the beat.

The sonic landscapes are sleek, but never icy. Even at her most dreamlike, Patricia's vocals reach an eerie beauty that is always deeply emotional. This emotional force is mirrored in her lyrics. For example, the gloriously cinematic "Voices" features our heroine conquering her inner narrative of fear and weakness and finding the vitality to achieve her dreams. In "Pain," Hall sings the word with an almost brazen confidence. "It's that pain," she coos, in a song about the sometimes oceanic distance that develops between two souls, as though her familiarity with pain is so deep that she can begin to play with it. Finally, the vintage synthesizers and drum machines evoke a Space Age dreamer's vision of the future as evidenced most clearly in the gorgeously atmospheric "Celestial Call". Soft Metals have a strange nostalgia for a place not yet visited - a place where we live among the stars.

STAFF COMMENTS

Darryl says: Superb synthwave pop that incorporates elements of Italo disco, house and early industrial music. On the always reliable Captured Tracks label.

TRACK LISTING

1. Psychic Driving
2. Always
3. Voices
4. Celestial Call
5. The Cold World Melts
6. Hold My Breath
7. Eyes Closed
8. Pain
9. Do You Remember
10. In Throes

Long-running European/American trio release their first record with Captured Tracks, the whoozy and beautiful "Your Love Runs Still" 4 song EP. A longtime favorite of all of us at the label, we're thrilled to start working with the band that was a constant on our Best of 2010 Year-End List.